Optimal stripe/cluster settings for filesharing raid5 drive?

funkymonkeypiefunkymonkeypie
edited May 2006 in Hardware
First time caller.

I am setting up four disk (4*500Gig=1.5TB) Raid-5 array that I am planning to mostly use for media storrage and file shareing (LimeWire). It is run from an onboard SiI 3114 chip, and I am wondering what settings I should use for stripe/cluster size. I want to choose settings that will be efficient and with as little system load as posible when UPLOADING LimeWire shares. (i download to a second partition on system HD where I virus scan and confirm content, then transfer whole files to avoid the brew-haa-haa of constant defragging). How large is the standard disk access in fileshareing programs? Any tips from RAIDers would be greatly appreciated.

Pertinent Parts:

Athlon 3700+ (754)
Asus K8N-E dx (bios 1006)

nForce3 250Gb
MCE-2005 on 2*Maxtor Di-Max 10 160Gig PATA (Raid0 on PM/SM)
Partitioned 80Gig/240Gig --> System/Files


SiI 3114 (onboard)
4*Maxtor Di-Max 10 SATA RAID-5


I would like to get my settings right the first time, thanks for any input.

Comments

  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Depending on file size I would start with 32/32 but not go past 64/64. Efficiency is generally lost past 64/64.
  • funkymonkeypiefunkymonkeypie
    edited May 2006
    My initial thoughts were to go with as small a stripe as posible, 4 or 8. The files shared are quite large (up to a gig) but i am under the impression that the amounts of the file that are accesed at any one time by online file sharing type programs are quite small. I am not quite clear yet though how cluster size interacts with stripe size. When formating which would give faster reads of short sections of files 512/1024/2048/4096?

    I tried posting in the file sharing forums but every one there tends to ask questions of the "how do i make a CD?", "where do i get porn?" variety.

    Point the Way.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited May 2006
    Based on this new information you have provided you would likely be best off with a stripe of 16 and a cluster of 8 or 16. It was proven some time ago that the best overall performance was achieved (especially with onboard controllers) in RAID-0 with 16/16. This is large enough to allow larger files to move quickly while smaller files still got a decent increase. But to set the stripe size any smaller taxed the system too much and performance suffered. This has been the standard for all of us here for at least the past 6 years and has not failed us yet. I currently have my data storage files on a 16/8 and it is working very well.
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