Setting RAID stripe size?

Does anyone know how you can set the stripe size used for a RAID 5 setup? Even just knowing what the default stripe size used would be helpful.
I have searched in the forums and user manual but I have not found the ability to do this anywhere. Thanks in advance.

Don't use partition magic.  You can't partition RAID.  Cluster size of 128 is good.  After making the Raid 0 array your bios will then have the option to boot from the array as if it were one HD instead of two.  Install your OS.  While windows is loading the driver data base you need to press f6 to load third party SCSI or RAID drivers.  You should have a floppy with the drivers.  After that your done.  Make sure there are no boot partitions on the single drives before you configure the array, you might have problems installing Windows.  At least that's been my experience.

Similar Messages

  • RAID Stripe size for HD Capture

    Hey everyone,
    So I just captured a lot of Uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2 1080i60.
    The video alone requires ~ 118 MB/s sustained transfer speed for live capture without dropped frames.
    I used our new MacPro. We built an internal RAID with 3 250 GB drives all striped together. I had to decide which stripe size to use. Since we have proportionally less files than the average RAID(200 or so at the most), and because our files are HUGE (2-40 GB), I figured a large stripe size would be apropriate. I set it to the max that Mac OS X software RAID supports, though I must confess I dont remember exactly what that was.
    We had little trouble with capture, sustaining over 200 MB/s bandwidth with this setup according to the Blackmagic drive speed test. However, when the drives filled up, they (expectedly) slowed down quite a bit. I frequently did speed tests, and when it got low I had to switch into shooting DVCPRO HD to avoid dropped frames.
    We had similar experiences before, when I had this same setup with the default stripe size, though it seemed overall a bit better with larger stripe sizes.
    My questions are thus:
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    2) Is my thinking correct that if I have a small number of gigantic files I should use a large stripe size?
    3) If I were to wipe out all my drives (including the 250 gig startup drive), and boot off the CD, could I tie all 4 drives together into RAID-0, and then install Mac OS X to that (and presumably partition it for a data storage volume)?
    4) Does anyone know of a good 2-4 port eSata PCI Express card that has drivers for the MacPro? I know sonnet has a 2 port, but its one internal SATA and one eSata. I need at least 2 eSata ports for it to be worth my time, because I have a 4 drive eSata RAID box with 4 320GB drives in it. I can use the motherboard's additional 2 SATA connectors through a backplate SATA -> eSATA converter, and with 2 more eSATA ports through PCIe card, I would be able to use all 4 eSATA drives at once.
    4 ports would be even better as I would like to leave internal ports for a BD-R or HD-DVD-R (or whatever they're called) drive later on.
    Thanks!
    -Derek Prestegard

    1) Is there any way to use a really large stripe (2MB
    or so) without buying a hardware RAID controller?
    256k is the largest block size available with Disk Utility.
    2) Is my thinking correct that if I have a small
    number of gigantic files I should use a large stripe
    size?
    128k is the largest size I would ever think about using. I even use 32k in many situations. You can test it and see what works best for you. Large block sizes do not always translate into higher performance. I find more drives in the striped RAID set helps me more than larger block sizes.
    3) If I were to wipe out all my drives (including the
    250 gig startup drive), and boot off the CD, could I
    tie all 4 drives together into RAID-0, and then
    install Mac OS X to that (and presumably partition it
    for a data storage volume)?
    You could boot from a FW800 external and use all 4 internals
    for a RAID but I think you will be happier with SATA host adapters.
    4) Does anyone know of a good 2-4 port eSata PCI
    Express card that has drivers for the MacPro
    Here are a few options for SATA host adapters on a Mac Pro that I use. The WiebeTech Tera Card TCES0-2e SATA host adapter provides two SATA ports and works with the Mac Pro using SiI-3132 Mac drivers 1.1.6. You can see a review at amug.org:
    http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/wiebetech/tces0/
    The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E 2-port host adapter can be found here:
    http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2se2-e/
    It works best on the Quad as it provides boot support and SMART drive support. On the Mac Pro you use the Firmtek cardbus 2SM2-E Mac driver until FirmTek can build new EFI drivers for the Mac Pro. No boot support is provided yet but it does pass SMART data to Mac OS X. Eventually the card will have Mac Pro boot support which will be nice.
    Both cards use the SiI-3132 controller. If you mix the WiebeTech and the FirmTek cards the Silicon Image Mac driver version 1.1.6 will take over and block the SMART data info that the FirmTek card supplies. As this is the case, I would go with one brand or the other but not mix them in the same Mac Pro.
    I have used three cards to provide six external SATA ports. You could use two cards with your external 4-bay enclosure. I would create a striped RAID with 4 external drives and two internal drives. This should provide you with the performance you need to handle 1080HD. If you want more power you could use 7 hard drives = 3 int. and 4 external.
    Have fun!

  • Raid Stripe size?

    Is 512 kb a good size compared to the default 64?
    Thanks
    Lee

    Quote
    Originally posted by lugen
    Hi,
        I have the Modded bios I can change almost anything about it.
    Lee
    Can you?  I am using the 5.4 modded bios and am unable to change the stripe size.  If I go to anything different than the original Windows will not load.
    Computer will just hang after the raid bios screen with a little blinking cursor at the top left.

  • HT2559 Help with setting raid block size after the fact

    I screwed up and created my raid 1 with block size set at 32. I need 256....it won't let me change it? What do I do?  Do I delete and re-configure it?

    thanks for the reply.  I am editing huge photo files (HDR Pano's) off the drive.  Doesn't that mean I need 256?  Anyway, when I go to erase it, it says "Deleting a mirrored RAID set changes each of its slices into a partition that contains a complete copy of the data from the deleted RAID set".   Is that a problem?

  • Max_io_size equivalent in Linux and block/stripe sizes

    I'm configuring a linux Red Hat 7.1 for Oracle 9i Rel2. I'm trying to determine the best db_block_size, and db_file_multiblock_read_count parameters. I know that these Oracle settings are dependent on the OS block size and the max_io_size of the OS.
    Does anyone know what the equivalent Linux parameter for max_io_size (solaris) is and how I set it in Linux? Does resetting it involve reinstalling Linux? Any suggestions on an appropriate range to set it? Is the default Linux 1K block size OK? (The server is a Compaq DL380 with 1.4 GHertz processor and 1 GB RAM.)
    Additionally, I have a Compaq 5300 Series RAID, (5i-integrated), that we plan to configure with RAID 0+1. Our controller only goes up to a stripe size of 256K, with a default of 128K. For a "general"-type database that could hold up to 80 GB of data over 50 or so tables, with a possible equal number of full-table scans and indexed scans, would you suggest I set the stripe size at 256 for the most flexiblility down the road?
    I don't fully understand what it takes to configure Linux and RAID for the best I/O for Oracle. So, I'd really appreciate any suggestions, tips, or doc references that can help out.
    Thanks,
    Deb

    the ssd is both sd and ssd.. inside the sd.conf and inside the /etc/system...
    the following below is a tnf report of the IO size of my process to show the kernel is breaking the IO down.
    sorry i wasn't clear on this part..
    62.059582 16.185079 480 1 0x3000338ecc0 0 strategy device: 584115552256 block: 60396848 size: 1048576 buf: 0x30000a78340 flags: 34088209
    306.154426 17.819569 480 1 0x3000338ecc0 0 strategy device: 584115552256 block: 60398896 size: 1048576 buf: 0x300035dcc00 flags: 34088209

  • Stripe SIze please help

    I am about to setup a RAID 0 array on my K7N2 Delta board with 2 X 80 gig Samsung SATA drives any ideas what I would need to set the Stripe size to for a Windows XP configuration?  Also does the array BIOS set it for you for optimal performance by default?

    djcla,
    I use a 16k Stripe vs the default 64k. I benchmarked all the options and found 16k optimal. Here were my latest Hard Drive Performance Numbers:
    Take Care,
    Richard

  • Optimizing RAID: stripe/chunk size

    I'm trying to figure out how to optimize the RAID chunk/stripe size for our Oracle 8i server. For example, let's say that we have:
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    - MULTIBLOCK_READ_COUNT=16
    Now the big question is what the optimal setting is for the chunk/stripe size. As far as I can see, we would have two alternatives:
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    In case 1, all i/o would be spread out over all 4 drives. In case 2, we'd be able to isolate a lot of i/o to separate drives, so that each drive serves different i/o calls. My guess is that case 1 would work better where there's a lot of random disk i/o.
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    WhitePages.com
    null

    It does not matter. Do not mix soft-raid and hard-raid. One OS i/o operation can read from one disk and number of disk. Do not forget about track-to-track seek time.
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    For example, http://www.fcenter.ru/fc-articles/Technical/20000918/hi-end.gif

  • Stripe Size for BE6000 RAID 10 Configuration.

    Hey,
    What should the stripe size be for the BE6000 RAID configuration should you have to rebuild the volume? When we got a BE6000 and looked the Stripe size seemed to be set to 64K, but I see documentation saying that 128K is what should be used (although that seems to refer to the RAID 5 configurations).
    Anyone know?
    Thanks,
    Joey

    http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/virtual/CUCM_BK_CF3D71B4_00_cucm_virtual_servers/CUCM_BK_CF3D71B4_00_cucm_virtual_servers_chapter_010.html doesn't make it seem like it only applies to RAID 5.

  • SE 6140 Raid 1 + 0 Stripe Size only up to 512kb?

    Question, can I set a 1MB stripe size on a SE 6140 array? The storage engineer says the maximum is 512kb.

    Go to the Help section in CAM. Under the section about storage profiles I found the supported stripe sizes are ... 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k, 128k, 256k, & 512k.
    Seems you got good advice from your engineer.

  • Best Raid Block Size for video editing

    I cannot seem to get my head round about which Raid Block Size I should set my Striped Raid 50 configuration to.
    There seems to be very little info about this, but what info there is seems to imply that it could seriously affect the performace of the Raid.
    I have initialized two Raid array's to Raid 5 and was about to stripe them together using Disk Utility, when I decided to click on options in the bottom left of the Disk Utility window. This is where you can set the Raid Block Size.
    The default is 32K, but it states that there could be 'performance benefits' if this setting is changed to better match my configuration.
    What exactly does this mean?
    I want do read multiple dv streams from my Raid 50 - Any ideas which Block Size I should allocate??
    Should I just leave it as the default 32K??
    Any help will be appreciated
    Cheers
    Adam

    My main concern is really to have as many editors as possible reading DV footage from the Raid simultaneously (up to 5 at once).
    I understand that we may struggle at times, but Xsan isn't an option and I just need to get the best out of a limited budget!
    Chers
    Adam

  • Best RAID block size for media drive?

    What block size give you best performance when it comes to pushing data?
    For a striped RAID setup.
    32 is standard but since most of the media files are big and consistent would a higher value like 128 or even 256 KB be better?

    "fools step in where angels fear to tred"
    Well I'm not volunteering to be one of those.
    Jerry, if your fiber channel raid is giving you the throughput that you need, don't be concerned.
    (I had a quick look through your manual and I'm also confused. But I can't afford that kind of setup so...?)
    I have a simple two 250GB LaCie d2 raid 0 set via SoftRaid and firewire 800 using the G5 port and a LaCie card firewire 800 for dual channel setup.
    This houses my media for FCP.
    My stripe size is set to 128K simply because that's what the SoftRaid manual recommended for video applications.
    This two drive setup is fine for multiple SD streams of DV, but can only manage a single 8 bit uncompressed HD 1080i stream without dropped frames.

  • Stripe size for scatch disk array

    I am building a CS5/64 workstation running on Win 7/64 that will be used to edit 1-4Gb images. The scratch disks will consist of a RAID 0 array using 3-4 WD600Gb 10K drives shortstroked on an Areca card.
    What is the best stripe size for a 3-4 disk array for large images? Does Adobe publish how they R/W to the scratch disk, size of block,etc?
    Larry

    Right click on the root of your C: drive, and choose Properties.
    Click the Hardware tab, select the drive (array) you'd like to set advanced caching on, and click the [Properties] button.
    Click the Policies tab, and note the setting of the [ ] Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device.  This may not be available, depending on the drivers.
    Note, specifically, that this feature can cause quite a lot of disk data to end up in your RAM for a while, if an application gets significantly ahead of the drive's ability to write data.  This is where the warning about having good battery backup comes in.  I'll add my own comment:  Your system should be very stable as well.  You don't want it crashing when a lot of writes are pending.
    -Noel

  • What should the "raid block size" be

    I just installed 3, 750 sata barracuda's in my 1 hour old 8 core mac. I am stripping them together with the OS to raid o.
    It is asking me what "raid block size" to use:
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    32k
    64k
    128k
    256k
    The help menu suggests that for the most thruput, a higher number might be best...
    I will be using this raid for DV & HD video with Final cut studio 2 & AFX cs3.
    Not sure which value to use.
    Thanks,
    Steve

    I would not include the OS with your HD & DV storage RAID.
    And Apple RAID keeps improving so that you can use smaller default for non-video or audio applications as in CS3 scratch disks.
    Booting from RAID has limitations and problems, and I would prefer a dedicated fast drive instead, and isolate the system activity as well which also helps.

  • RAID0 Stripe size

    im using the 3ware 8506-4LP with 4 WD 250 GB Caviar Drives(7200rpm).. What would be the ideal stripe size for :
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    so what would be the ideal linux stripe size?

    Hi,
    Sun support confirmed that you can have the 2 halfs of the mirror with different interlace sizes, this obviously is not the optimum setup, but will allow me to detach d61 and recreate with correct interlace size, reattach d61 and let it resync, then detach d62 and recreate with correct interlace size and finally reattach d62 and let that resync
    Kevin....

  • Raid block size ?

    i just purchased two firewire 800
    500gb external hard drives.
    i want to use them as a raid set up for recording audio, (vocals,guitars etc)
    or keeping my komplete ultimate 9 sound library on it.
    either way, i have no idea what raid block size to use ?
    hope everyone is having a great new year ;-)

    Hello d rock,
    When creating a RAID array, you'll typically want your block size to match (as closely as reasonable) the size of the files being stored on the array.
    ...specify an optimal storage block size for the data stored on the set. Set the block size to match the size of data stored on the set. For example, a database might store small units of data, so a small block size might be best. A video processing application might require fast throughput of large amounts of data, so a larger block size might be best.
    Disk Utility 12.x: Create a RAID set
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5834
    Cheers,
    Allen

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