View Full Version : Stripe/Cluster Size
[XC] Angstrom
05-19-2006, 04:07 PM
I have searched these forums, but I can't find an answer for my setup.
I just want to know the best Stripe/Cluster Size, mostly for gaming, a little bit of photoshop, general internet, lots of music and movies (I think I might shift these to my storage drive though). But in the end, mostly for gaming.
But i've also heard that RAID0 is useless for real world desktop performance, especially gaming. But so many people here have Stripe arrays, so i'm confused. What's the deal?
Nanometer
05-21-2006, 12:54 PM
I have a RAID 0 array for fast intall times and fast file transfer.
krylon
05-21-2006, 03:19 PM
Best way to go is a separate drive/array for storage and another for OS. Having a raid array for your OS introduces more rotational latancy since there are two drives. For things like BF2 this is no problem since load times are generally dealing with large files over an extended period of time. For small loads or dealing with very small files, a raid 0 will overall be slower. I'd recommend a high rpm single drive for OS and raid 0 for storage if you move/copy/edit large files. 16K stripe seems to be the sweet spot for most people.
krylon
05-21-2006, 03:27 PM
Forgot to mention, check out this thread about stripe sizes.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=98643
Stripe size results here:
http://forum.useless-microoptimizations.com/forum/raid.html
I have the raw data file if you want it. It's hard to say whether the optimal size the the same on other raid system but chances are they are similar.
Nanometer
05-22-2006, 04:50 PM
Er, I didn't say stripe size. I'm using 128K. I'm going to switch 32k or 16k next format. I have to decide which stripe size is faster. :-\
timpanogos
05-22-2006, 05:50 PM
There is a ton of information here:
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4177&highlight=raid0
if your are doing lots of large files, large strip. Small files, small strip. It also has a lot to do with your disk drives formated sector size - windows default is 4k. For two drive raid, they where finding that a ratio of 1:4 (cluster size to strip size) was optimal (i.e. 16k)
[XC] Angstrom
05-23-2006, 06:01 AM
64K on nvraid seems to be working fine for normal use, even speeds up oblivion load times very slightly (and yes I do notice it). Defrag is very fast too.