Stripe sizes for two drives

caff

caff

caff

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Today I'm setting up two RAID arrays in my new machine. This is the first time I've tried RAID on a home PC so I've no idea what performance to expect.

First raid array will have two drives in RAID-0, will be my C: drive used for windows, applications, games - anything that can be installed.

Second raid array, again two drives in RAID-0, will be for my data, music samples, videos, MP3's etc. - most of which will be large files (min 5mb)

Question is, what stripe size should I use for each drive? I've read various comments saying 32kb is a good average for a Windows array, and 128kb is better for media drives. Is this about right? I'm not interested in benchmarks - just real world performance.
 
Would that be the fastest setup? If so, what RAID should I use?

My motherboard (Asus P5W DH) apparently supports RAID 0+1 using 4 drives, which sounds like it could be good - is this as fast as RAID 0 alone?
 
Last edited:
Thanks

I think I will try the 0+1 - having some redundancy might be a good idea. It looks fairly straightforward to setup too. I'll try sticking with the default 64kb stripe to see how it goes.
 
Hmm, well in the end I bottled it and went for two drives in RAID 0. Windows explorer seems much more snappy.

I'll think about what to do with the other two drives - most likely either in another RAID 0 array, or just seperate standalones.

As a by note, these Samsung are silent! Very nice :)
 
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