Smart Array 641 stripe size

[Simon J. Weel]

Hello,

We bought a new Hp Proliant ML350G4p with Smart Array 641 controller. We stacked the machine with 6 145 GB harddisks and created a RAID5 array of 5 drives with one hot spare. This machine will run Windows server 2003.

Question 1: How do I determine the optimal stripe size for the array?

Question 2: What is the optimal block-size if I format the drive for NTFS?

Been looking on the net for a while, but haven't found anything useful.

Greetings,

Simon Weel

[Steven Clementi]

Simon:

Since you can create multiple Logical Drives and assign different stripe sizes to them... it is probable that you may use different sizes.

If you will be separating your OS from your data, which is the suggested method of configuration (separate Logical Drives, NOT separate partitions on the same Logical Drive), then the default stripe size is usually sufficient for your OS Drive.

For data, it depends on what kind of data you will be storing. I would think larger stripe sizes would perform better if you're storing large files, lower stripe sizes if your storing small files. For a mizure of file sizes, the default might be best or something close to it.

I have not done any testing to confirm all of this, but I am sure someone out there has tested these things and can provide statistics.



Steven

[Basil Vizgin]

Please read this advisory:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=PSD_CN0673W&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
And this guide:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00366606/c00366606.pdf

[Simon J. Weel]

Hello all,

Thanks for the information. I will try a benchmark to see if different stripsizes will result in different performance.

As for the clustersize in Windows: I found out that using a clustersize above 4KB results in being unable to use compression. So I guess Microsoft wants us to use a clustersize of 4 KB...

Greetings,

Simon Weel