2x Velociraptors (RAID0) Stripe & Block Sizes Please?

mremulator

mremulator

mremulator

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I was wondering what the best block and stripe sizes would be for me... E8500 @ 4.3GHz, 4GB DDR3 (1800MHz) and Vista 64-bit OS.

Basically, I have tons of High-def content on my PC and MP3's etc.

So a small stripe size (32/64) would be no good I feel?
 
In real world "desktop" applications Raid0 doesnt offer a great performance increase with any strip size. Its increase in data transfer rate is countered by a slight increase in access latency. Outside of server environments seek times are more important than the transfer rates.

For MP3 and HD media streaming a consistant transfer rate and low latency is far more important than ultimate transfer speeds.

For gaming load times are virtually unaffected by raid0, in some cases the increased latency can even make it slightly slower. I used to run a raid0 setup, but my partners computer which is identical in all ways (except it's hard drives were formated as two separate drives), loaded faster in Everquest/Wow, and even booted windows slightly faster. I tried various stripe sizes, but in the end went back to a non raid.

Raid0 can theoretically pull a lead in video encoding, but even there a quad Core2 processor doing a HD encoding still wont put much stress on the hard drive. Perhaps 2-3% gain if your lucky from using raid0.

That said, a single Velociraptor does extremely well due to its insanely fast access time, and low rotational latency. (Thats why SSD's do so well in "booting windows" and "game loading times". SSD transfer rates are not awesome, but their access latency is virtually zero.)

A really fast system might use an SSD for OS + Swap, Velociraptor's for applications/games and frequently used data, plus a big 7200rpm disk for media and archived data.
 
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Corasik said:
In real world "desktop" applications Raid0 doesnt offer a great performance increase with any strip size. Its increase in data transfer rate is countered by a slight increase in access latency. Outside of server environments seek times are more important than the transfer rates.

For MP3 and HD media streaming a consistant transfer rate and low latency is far more important than ultimate transfer speeds.

For gaming load times are virtually unaffected by raid0, in some cases the increased latency can even make it slightly slower. I used to run a raid0 setup, but my partners computer which is identical in all ways (except it's hard drives were formated as two separate drives), loaded faster in Everquest/Wow, and even booted windows slightly faster. I tried various stripe sizes, but in the end went back to a non raid.

Raid0 can theoretically pull a lead in video encoding, but even there a quad Core2 processor doing a HD encoding still wont put much stress on the hard drive. Perhaps 2-3% gain if your lucky from using raid0.

That said, a single Velociraptor does extremely well due to its insanely fast access time, and low rotational latency. (Thats why SSD's do so well in "booting windows" and "game loading times". SSD transfer rates are not awesome, but their access latency is virtually zero.)

A really fast system might use an SSD for OS + Swap, Velociraptor's for applications/games and frequently used data, plus a big 7200rpm disk for media and archived data.
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Therefore, I'm leaning towards a 256k stripe. Basically, my average file size is only 970K because most of my large files are on external USB2 HDD's. A 1MB file would be divided into 4 stripes on the 2 drives for example, smaller system files would simply be written to one drive and read from one drive.
 
The only time you'll notice an improvement in performance with raid0 on a typicaly desktop setup is copying files around, and perhaps unpacking zips (though not packing zips). The increased risk of dataloss just isnt worth it imho.

128k stripe sizes were the "best" in my raid0 experiments, but I still went back to non raid as the computer felt no better than my partners non raided computer. I use my PC for gaming, compling software (solaris studio c compiler), and media.
 
The main reason I'm going RAID0 is because I want my 2x Velociraptors to be seen as 1 logical drive. I have a 1TB Samsung F1 for backup etc.

Can't decide to go for 128k or 256 stripe??
 
mremulator said:
The main reason I'm going RAID0 is because I want my 2x Velociraptors to be seen as 1 logical drive. I have a 1TB Samsung F1 for backup etc.
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what benefits would this bring you? lol. when most other people would partition a larger drive, you want to make two smaller ones one larger logical drive lol
 
Raid0 will give you a gain overall no matter what your told.

Raiding raises the seeks but as your starting of with a very low seek anyhow your better of seek wise than another other desktop HDD be it Raid or non Raid.

Most guides say 16k-32k for all round use.

4k would be great for benches but HDD would fragment frequently.

64k and upwards are starting to get into Video work although many modern Mobos set this or higher as default where as all my previous Mobos were either 16k or 32k.

You can use search and see this gets asked a lot and the same info is there as now.

Things change like XP to Vista etc, what size as most of the Windows file etc so thats how you work out whats the best Stripe for you.

No matter if you want to but 2 V-Raptors and Raid0 it will be extremely fast, lucky ******* :p.

I also dont use Partitions, if you want to Raid0 2 HDD's and end up with 2x the Storage thats also fine I did it for Raptor X's.

Tried it before, saved me no time, 3/4 of my Games and APP's still needed reinstalled to actually run in the new Windows install, only use now if I was Beta testing which I aint since Vista and Office 11.

I will Raid 2 smaller V-Raptors if they appear, I do not need 600GB in PC at any one time, I use External for stuff moved from PC for backup.

The old story about Data loss etc, HDD's are better now than ever, obv 2 HDD's even 2x as much chance as fail, it still small and EVERYONE should have a backup be it Raid or non Raid they run.

Your PC will boot up faster, It will load some games faster (not all like old day due to way they are coded better now), it will unrar, rar up things faster.

It will just simply feel snappier. :)
 
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james.miller said:
what benefits would this bring you? lol. when most other people would partition a larger drive, you want to make two smaller ones one larger logical drive lol
Click to expand...

LOL? Do you know of any 600GB Raptors or another SATA drive that matches it performance wise? ;)

Also it is widely acknowledged that there is a clear performance benefit when using RAID0.
 
helmutcheese said:
Raid0 will give you a gain overall no matter what your told.

Raiding raises the seeks but as your starting of with a very low seek anyhow your better of seek wise than another other desktop HDD be it Raid or non Raid.

Most guides say 16k-32k for all round use.

4k would be great for benches but HDD would fragment frequently.

64k and upwards are starting to get into Video work although many modern Mobos set this or higher as default where as all my previous Mobos were either 16k or 32k.

You can use search and see this gets asked a lot and the same info is there as now.

Things change like XP to Vista etc, what size as most of the Windows file etc so thats how you work out whats the best Stripe for you.

No matter if you want to but 2 V-Raptors and Raid0 it will be extremely fast, lucky ******* :p.

I also dont use Partitions, if you want to Raid0 2 HDD's and end up with 2x the Storage thats also fine I did it for Raptor X's.

Tried it before, saved me no time, 3/4 of my Games and APP's still needed reinstalled to actually run in the new Windows install, only use now if I was Beta testing which I aint since Vista and Office 11.

I will Raid 2 smaller V-Raptors if they appear, I do not need 600GB in PC at any one time, I use External for stuff moved from PC for backup.

The old story about Data loss etc, HDD's are better now than ever, obv 2 HDD's even 2x as much chance as fail, it still small and EVERYONE should have a backup be it Raid or non Raid they run.

Your PC will boot up faster, It will load some games faster (not all like old day due to way they are coded better now), it will unrar, rar up things faster.

It will just simply feel snappier. :)
Click to expand...

So considering my average file size is 970K what would you recommend... 128K stripe?
 
I tried out a number of different stripe sizes (16KB, 32KB, 64KB, 128KB) for "general" usage, quite a while ago, and a size of 32KB was the one that I found best overall......
 
@ mremulator, I went for 16k as its faster than 32k for MY general use and the reviews said 16k-32k.

jbloggs has found the same by actually spending time doing his own reviews on it and for HIM it was 32k.

So unless its Video work go for 32k IMO, unless you want to try everyone from say 16-256k (can avoid smaller ones).
 
Another vote for 32kb for a system drive. My pair of Vraptors averaged 196mb/s in HDtach at 32kb stripe size.
 
mremulator said:
Smart, like you you mean :p You obviously don't have a clue what you are talking about!
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like me:o ok you cant answer it, ill do it then. it offers nothing other than saying 'i have a 600gb drive'. even when i ran raid, i still partitioned the logical drive. partitioning the drive allows you to intelligently distribute data on the rair array. allowing you to freshly reinstall windows when required without having to nuke the entire array, same as partitioning a non raid drive OR using separate drives. 600gb imo (im far from alone here) is too big for a windows partition and partitioning it only brings benefits.

obviously though, i dont have a clue what i'm talking about. Exclamation mark.
 
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Would like to see some HDTach/HDTune benches of this Velociraptor (not taken from reviews), maybe some kind soul could please oblige...:)
 
I can see the benefit of a 32K (or smaller) stripe for gaming and general OS usage, however, for larger files (music & video) I can see a larger stripe size being . However, considering most of my large files are stored externally, a 32K stripe size seems like a good starting point.
 
Thats what a few of us have told you, it doesn't not mean you cant have lots of music or movies on your HDD efficiently, we are talking peeps who do actual Video Editing work use bigger Stripes anywhere from 64k-256k normally.
 
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