Suggested stripe sizes for Windows 2003 Servers

[Curiosityx]

Generally in the past i have used a set values for this as ive not had problems with disk performance on the servers ive configured, well until recently anyhow!

As a rule of thumb would you agree with using a 128Kb stripe on an OS partition for better sequential read performance and a 64Kb stripe on a storage volume for better random read performance.

Manufacturers do suggest alternatives but has anyone found a workable system for deciding on these values?

 

[lay-z-boy]

Everything impacts what is best

os
data on drives
drive
controller
controller cache
array type
drive usage

from my experiance and own testing i found that 64/128k are the ones to go for if your using it for an os drive.

That was on a nf4 with quad drives in various raid formats
On an intel ich7 i found that 128k was the best (matrix raided)

For storage, it depends on the size of files, i dont have the option to go larger than 256k on my server raid contoller, but say you have loads of iso's that are many hundreds of megs a 1/2mb is a good choice.

So its up to you to see what the avg. file size is and work it out for yourself