SSD/RAID Stripe/Block Size?

N

Nighted

Gawd
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
631
Hey hey!

Just got some new toys, gonna slap them in the pig in a bit. Here's the new Kingston 40GB V Series SSD drives fastened into a Silverstone 3.5" to 2.5" bay converter, perfect for an SSD RAID config.

Any suggestions on stripe/block size for these? I think for now I'll go with 128kb stripe and a default block size. Any ideas? This is my first time striping solid states.

Oh, btw, these damned Silverstone drive adapters, the holes are too small for a regular six sided power bit, which all of my PicQuic screwdrivers use. :mad:
For the $12 freakin' bucks you think they'd get that right. ;)
I had to fiddle around with my tiny little micro driver.

img0380ty.jpg
 
looks beautiful. you will get as many recommendations for a stripe size as there are stripe sizes :)
64k or 128k
 
I am not completely sure if this is accurate, but maybe someone can come in and confirm or deny it.
One, what will you use this for? Loading large files (games? recording video? etc) or as an OS drive (lots of small I/O operations?)

if you are using it as an OS drive and looking fwd to a lot of small I/O tasks, you might want a smaller stripe size, like 64.

if you are loading larger files consistently, you may want to go larger, like 128.
if you are using this array as a general purpose drive for a little bit of everything, then stick with the default recommended stripe size.
Again, I haven't used raid in ages so I could be either completely wrong or this info could only partially apply to SSDs.
 
i have done extensive testing with ssd and stripe sizes on several different types of controllers. 16k is best for actual performance and loading of apps etc. HOWEVER, it kills maz throughput, so if you do lots of file transfers you will suffer. it is also not good for the long term health of your ssd. 64k is best for normal usage. 1mb is also killer if ;your controller can do it, pwnz at throughput. what is your usage pattern? what do you do with yer comp?
 
I'm all over the place. Audio editing, gaming, coding.

I'm using 128kb blocks right now. Also testing them out on the mobo's JMicron controller.
Probably do some benches tomorrow then maybe swap over to the Intel ICH10R controller and see what happens. Don't think there will be much difference though as from what I've read it's inconsistent with different drives/firmware.

BTW, XP nLited took about 5 minutes to install. So writes aren't as horrible as I thought. Reads arewhat I expected...walking all over my Caviar Black 640's. Photoshop opens in about 2 seconds. My extension laden Firefox in just under 1. :)

Did a bit of gaming too and loads are freaking ridiculous. :D
 
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Ok nerds and nerdettes, I'm done messing around with these things.

I tried some benchmarks on the JMicron controller, and although the machine was running beautifully and at speeds I had never encountered, switching over to Intel RAID doubled my reads.

capture369.png


Just for fun, here's the Caviar Black 640GB my OS was running on:

capture370.png
 
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