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.

Similar Messages

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

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:
1) Is there any way to use a really large stripe (2MB or so) without buying a hardware RAID controller?
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!

Maximum drive size for mirrored RAID

I'm want to set up a mirrored RAID with two 4TB drives that I have. When I put the drives in the tower (Mac Pro, OS 10.8.5) and open Disk Utility, the RAID button at the top does not show up for these drives. I only see First Aid, Erase, and Restore. Is there a max size for a drive that I'm exceeding? Or is it something else?

Hi - from the research I have done, there is a BUG in the OS. A solution is to boot with an older version of OS X and format the drive with the version of disk utlity on the older OS, or yank out the drive and put it in one of those 'drive toaster' type devices and format it EXTERNALLY. The problem seems to be localized when it's formatted with the drive INSIDE the MacPro.
You would figure that this would be a high priority fix, but NO. I went nuts for a few days trying to figure out WHY I could not see the RAID tab.
There is also third party software that has a more robust RAID solution. I have NOT tried it yet, but you should check it out.
http://www.softraid.com/
Alfred
PS: If you've resolved this problem, do share your findings here too!

Maximum size for Xserve RAID modules

What is the maximum storage size for an Xserve RAID module?
Years ago, an Xserve RAID was out of my price range. Now, I'm looking into getting one on eBay and playing around with it.
I have been making Mirrored RAIDS with Western Digital 3 TB My Books.
Can I put 3 TB drives in an Xserve RAID? It probably depends on the controller firmware or something.
Thanks for thinking about this.
Doc

Short answer is no, you can't.
The XServe RAID has IDE drives mounted in a carrier. The maximum size drive shipped by Apple, supported under 1.5.1 firmware on the controllers is 750GB, though finding these on the used market is farily difficult. Aside from that, any IDE drive can be put in the carriers. If your unit has 'blank' slots, these are indeed just blank slots - you will need to get carriers / drive modules if you want disks in the slot if that makes sense.
People on the Internet, myself included, have experimented down the route of using IDE to SATA bridges in the carriers with 2.5" SATA drives which are more freely available. This way you can utilise cheap drives in your drive modules, or even SSDs (which offer little benefit I have found). Some users have had success with 1TB 2.5" SATA drives in this method, but not with anything bigger it seems. Myself, I've had suceess with 500GB SATA and 256GB SSD with this hacky method.
Hope that helps.

Advice for a RAID configuration in my new Mac Pro

I just got a brand new Mac Pro and I am looking to get the fastest possible render and encode times possible. Originally I bought an eSATA PCIe card but was not impressed with the transfer times. In another forum a user suggested that I setup a RAID5. What kind of drives and RAID cards do you recommend as pro videographers? I suppose I can use my 1TB G-Drive as cold storage for the captured video. Any ideas?

Tell me what you think of this potential setup then...
Hard Drive Bay 1
1TB Hard Drive from Apple that came with my Mac Pro
Hard Drive Bay 2
Cold Storage/Backup for Bay 3 & 4
Hard Drive Bay 3
RAID 0 with Bay 4
Hard Drive Bay 4
RAID 0 with Bay 3
I'm looking at getting three of these hard drives for the 3 empty hard drive bays...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284
What would you guys recommend I do with my 1TB G-Drive? It has USB, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA.

Changing Stripe sizes?

Hi,
I would LIKE to experiment with stripe Sizes. I ave 512 now with the Modded BIOS for my KT3. I I were to delete a array and try a different stripe size for my RAID 0 would I have to reformat?
Thanks

http://kunibert.50megs.com/index.html
I'm going to make a image of my RAID and TRY to drop it from 512 to 256
Just need to find Ghost for XP
Lee

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 :
-reiserfs
-reiser 4
-xfs
does the file system make a difference? whats the best stripe fo rlinux in general..everyday desktop use..
my options are from 64k all the way upto 1MB
ive read that 64k is ideal for windows..
with the 4-way raid, im getting 100MB/s in HDTach with a stripe size of 512KB (which seems a little low)
my current plan is to use 2 of the drives with a stripe size of 64k with windows and the other two with linux.. im a general desktop user, bit of divx encoding and lots of compiling. Im using the AMD FX-55 with 2GB of RAM
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....

X4500 Thumper and RAID configuration

Hi,
Scenario:
Suppose I have an X4500 running with Solaris and ZFS . I configured RAID5 configuration with the ZFS tools. The RAID is working fine, but after x months/years I need to make a new Solaris installation from scratch on the X4500 machine.
Will my ZFS data located in the RAID be in danger?
In a hardware based RAID, the meta-data for the RAID configuration and rebuilding it is done regardless of the OS running above it. It is done by the RAID controller.
However, in X4500 with Solaris+ZFS - the OS itself is managing the RAID configuration. So...? What will happen to the data if the OS fails or needs to be reinstalled?
Thanks,
Itay.

By RAID5 I assume you mean RAID-Z which is the ZFS replacement for RAID-5. If you actually mean SVM RAID-5 with ZFS on top of that, I don't think there is a way to get the data. But with ZFS, the state is actually stored within the pool, so it is system-independent. If you intend to upgrade, first run zpool export, do the install, then do zpool import (it will scan your disks for any pools). If your system crashes, you should be able to do a zpool import -f (which will force import a non-exported zpool).

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.

Recommended Block Size For RAID 0

I am setting up a RAID configuration (Striping, no Parity, Mac G5, OS-X) and was curious what the recommended Block Size should be. Content is primarily (but not limited to) Images created with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and range in size from 1.5MB to >20MB. The default for OS-X is 32K chunks of data.
Drives are External FW-400.
Many thanks, and Happy Holidays to all!

If it is just scratch, run some benchmarks with it set to 128k and 256k and see how it feels with each. The default is too small, though some find it acceptable for small images. For larger files you want larger - and for PS scratch you definitely want 128 or 256k.

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.

What is the best RAID configuration for a MacPro as a Logic User?

There ought to be a universal answer to this question: what is the best RAID configuration for Logic Mac Pro users? I will be more specific.
I use Logic Studio, Reason, Ableton, and Motu Symphonic Instrument simultaneously.
I want to fail safe my precious audio files and improve performance as the system reads/writes data from multiple files, from audio tracks to digital samples.
I want to run video files simultaneously to do nifty audio soundtracking to video.
Here is the configuration I have in mind.
HD 1: OS and Logic Studio, Reason/Ableton samples etc. software (non-raid) (250 GB)
HD 2/3: MIrrored RAID set for AUDIO FILES (500 Gb identical pair)
HD 4: Video files / Bouncing (1 TB)
Makes sense right? A disk for reading software. A pair of 500 GB disks for reading/writing audio files and sessions in mirrored array. A 1 TB disk for video and bouncing. The main question I have is, for audio files only, is striped or mirrored better? 64K blocks the best? And are there any more details. I assume to do this in Disk Utility.

Well, both Mirrored and Striped have their pros and cons. If you use mirrored, it will offer no better performance than the spec'ed drive along with it's sata bus speed. The plus point is, if one drive goes down, you have the second as a backup as the complete contents of one drive are mirrored on the other.
With striped you will get a performance boost because all files (for example a single project) will get written across both drives and hence split the load on the drives and the SATA busses. The drawback is that you'll have to make sure you have a good, regular backup schedule in place because when one of the drives goes to drive heaven, you're going to be stuffed without a full backup of both drives.
Exactly what performance boost you'd get will depend on your project, number of files, size of files, fragmentation of files, track count etc. You may find it would be easier to use the 3 drives straight, with no raid and have:
HD 1: OS and Apps. No samples at all.
HD2: Audio Files for Logic projects
HD3: Reason, Ableton, Logic etc instrument sample library
HD4: Video and bouncing.
Which is what I ended up doing although I use HD4 as an interchangeable backup for HD1 and 2.
There is no universal answer to this as each must make their own choice based on their preferences and needs. Mirrored will give you full backup but on-site, in machine backup. Not much good if something untoward and drastic happens to the physical machine. I think a few people toy with striped RAID but fall on the side of using the drives straight, as in their projects they don't see a big enough gain over splitting the data across your 3 remaining drives without RAID. Studios that seriously consider raid often go out and get a dedicated raid that can offer more variations than raid 0 or raid 1 (Striped and Mirrored) and better throughput.
I hope this helps a little and not just added to the dilemma.

UCS RAID Configuration on UCS C240 M3 TRC2 for UC Applications

Hi
This UCS server has Twelve 300 GB hard disk. The RAID configuration recommended in Cisco Documentation is to have 2 RAID 5 Volumes 1.36 TB each.
I don't understand this configuration for the following reasons :
I prefer to dedicate a RAID Volume to ESXi and the second RAID Volume for UC Application.
For UCS C240 M3 TRC3 the First RAID volume should be a small size (for Example 300 GB with RAID1 ) and the second one about 2 TB with RAID 5
Why ?
Because in case of problem with ESXi, I can reinstall ESXi, and to recover all My UC applications after ESXi reinstallation.
This kind of configuration was the one use by old C210 M2 (Small RAID 1 volume for ESXi and Larger RAID 5 Volume for UC Applications)
The problem is that with two 1.36 TB Volume , I can install ESXi on the first RAID Volume and UC on second RAID volume. But there is a big waste of Disk Space (about 1 TB )!!!
The problem of changing this RAID recommended Configuration is that TAC consider that we are no longer running on TRC design, so the support is able to be rejected.
Is anybody from Cisco able to explain me the reasons for such RAID Design for UCS C240 M3 TRC2 for UC Applications
Thanks

You need to go thru your AM, or ask in a partner forum this question, this cannot be addressed at CSC.
And we didn't tell you support would be rejected, we told you that support would fall from a guaranteed performance UC on UCS TRC, to that of a UC on UCS spec based, as changing the RAID would be guidance-only.

TRIM does not work for SSD in a RAID configuration

According to Intel, SSDs that are used in a RAID configuration cannot use the TRIM function in Windows 7. This would seem to lead to an eventual degradation of those RAID SSD configurations. Is there any work ongoing to enable TRIM in the future?
"....Intel later clarified that TRIM was supported for the BIOS settings of AHCI mode and RAID mode, but not if the drive was part of a RAID volume.[16]..."
W520, i7-2820QM, BIOS 1.42, 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 2000M NVIDIA GPU, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD, Crucial M550 mSata 512GB, WD 2TB USB 3.0, eSata Plextor PX-LB950UE BluRay
W520, i7-2760QM, BIOS 1.42 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 1000M NVIDIA GPU, Crucial M500 480GB mSata SSD, Hitachi 500GB HDD, WD 2TB USB 3.0
Solved!
Go to Solution.

The performance hit would only be on the write side of the equation. If the garbage collection of these SSD drives is sufficient, I wonder why TRIM exists? I'm posting an excerpt from Wikipedia on the subject below:
"All SSDs have garbage collection. That is a function of NAND flash memory used in SSDs. Some drives may be more efficient at GC than others. Some do not recover as well as others after they have been used for a period of time. Some drives perform GC in the background when the drive is otherwise not busy with user data (idle), but there are some drawbacks to that background operation (you can see the wikipedia article for more details). In general background GC is not good for the endurance of the drive because it moves data that the OS (and user) may delete and render unnecessary to GC in the first place. The best solution is to do it on the fly as fast as possible.
TRIM is a command sent by the OS to the drive identifying the actual logical block addresses (LBAs) that are no longer needed. To understand TRIM you must understand how the OS and SSD tracks the data. When you put an item in the OS trash you are not actually deleting the items. They are just marked ready for deletion. If the user says to empty the trash, the OS notes this and now says those LBAs are free to accept new data. This is true for all storage devices, not just SSDs. Many people do not realize that the storage device does not actually delete the data at that point. The act of erasing a file is simply the OS marking its internal lookup tables for that file as free to store new information. An HDD still has the data on the drive at that location until the OS writes something new into that spot. For an SSD it is the same; the SSD still has the data in the flash at that location until the OS writes something new into that spot. Of course the NAND flash memory requires the replacement data to be written into a new location and the old data is marked as "invalid" now. Then during garbage collection that invalid data is NOT moved with other valid data in that block to a new block.
The performance of an SSD is at its peak when it is brand new out of the box because there is nothing to GC. Unfortunately this occurs only at the beginning of the drive's life or after you secure erase the drive and start over. Performance is also affected by the size of the over provisioning (OP) (details also in the wikipedia article above). During GC if the drive does not have to move around as much data it can operate faster. The TRIM command enables the OS to tell the SSD what LBAs are no longer valid data. Without the TRIM command this only happens when the OS tries to write something new into that same spot or it tries to replace the current data. If the SSD knew in advance that some of the LBAs holding data were invalid the drive would not move that data during GC. The effect gets you closer to the performance of a drive with larger OP. Without the TRIM command the drive will perform like it is at full capacity at all times and only has the amount of OP set at the factory (plus any space left unused during the partition process when first setting up the drive)."
W520, i7-2820QM, BIOS 1.42, 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 2000M NVIDIA GPU, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD, Crucial M550 mSata 512GB, WD 2TB USB 3.0, eSata Plextor PX-LB950UE BluRay
W520, i7-2760QM, BIOS 1.42 1920x1080 FHD, 32 GB RAM, 1000M NVIDIA GPU, Crucial M500 480GB mSata SSD, Hitachi 500GB HDD, WD 2TB USB 3.0

Stripe Size for BE6000 RAID 10 Configuration.

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for