RAID And You (A Guide To RAID-0/1/5/6/xx)

[karateo]

Hi!
I created an raid-0 array using 2x WD 250KS disks
I chose stripe size 32k and allocation unit while formating 64k

It's only a 5Gb partition at the beginning of the disk with 130mb/sec average read and 8.3ms average access

I am going to use it ONLY for my windows XP/Vista pagefile.

Do you think I chose the right stripe size?
I have read that 64k is the recommended allocation unit for pagefile, but I didn't find anything about the strip size. I thought, that using 32K i will cause its cluster to separate to both disks

[Serra]

Asking a question like that is like asking a room full of guys what their definition of a hot girl is - the answer will vary from person to person by usage pattern.

There are some generalizations that can be made, such as smaller numbers for smaller files... but there's no cut-and-dry "right" answer. In most cases, I generally suggest trying it both ways and then think to myself "Not that it matters, it's going to end up being a completely subjective/biased answer whatever they come up with because the difference isn't generally noticeable".

IMO: Stick with defaults and be happy, unless you're setting it up for benching or some special application - if so, then you can tweak for that application.

[Knight]

Serra, I have a question about my Intel Matrix Array. I would like to apologize if the question does pertain to the reason for creating this great thread.

I created two volumes by using two 320GB 7200.10 drives. Both volumes are set in Raid 0 through the Matrix control panel during boot. I am using the ICH9R south bridge.

Volume 1 - 107GB OS and Applications
Volume 2 - 496GB Storage

I believe that my volumes are limited due to the results from HD Tach (Not the best, I know ). The image below is from Volume 1 without Volume Write Back Cache. It seems to have the performance of only one drive.



The one below is with VWBC enabled. It has a significant increase, but seems to be caped. Others with a similar setup are running the test on the whole 640GB and getting a read speed of 180-200.



The volume is clean of errors and I followed Seagate's instructions on enabling SATA2 (Jumper setting). The Intel Raid Manager (v7.8) reports a healthy array. I haven't had any errors or corruption of the OS with the array like this, but I would just like to know a little about what might be the problem, or if this is normal.

[Serra]

That's a good advertisement for enabling WBC.

I seem to recall that Seagate 7200.10 drives usually get ~80MB/s max out of the first portion of the drive, so if you're seeing ~160MB/s with two drives, I'd probably be pretty happy. Still, if you can provide links to other people doing noticeably better we can take a look at them and try to determine what may cause the differences.

[Knight]

That's a good advertisement for enabling WBC.

I seem to recall that Seagate 7200.10 drives usually get ~80MB/s max out of the first portion of the drive, so if you're seeing ~160MB/s with two drives, I'd probably be pretty happy. Still, if you can provide links to other people doing noticeably better we can take a look at them and try to determine what may cause the differences.

I guess that my results are typical then. I just took a look in the Hard Drive Benchmark thread to find the picture that I was interested in posting. I however found this:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=187

I believe that if I were to use three drives then it would scale in similar manner.


EDIT:

It could also be due to the firmware being bad. Some 7200.10's have the 3.AAK firmware. Most of those drives perform less than the other similar drives with a different firmware.

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=213448
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24...agate-firmware

My luck gave me two 3.AAK drives.

[swiftex]

i use 8gb's of ram so I just ditched the pagefile period.

some guys may want 2mb allocated for a dump file but &*(^%$ I don't bother

pagefile and prefetch gone way of dodo bird...........