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31-03-2009, 11:02 PM
#36 (permalink)
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Optimal stripe size is dependent on the controller used and type and number of drives used. I'd say if you had to test 3 stripe sizes for up to 4 to 6 drive arrays, I'd test 64K, 128K and 128K and pick the best one for the task at hand
hardware raid controllers come in different levels of performance that scale with price so hard to say what gains. But for raid 5/6 hardware raid definitely will beat ICH10R or onboard solutions. Raid 0, you can get more performance with better cpu performance to extent of ICH10R raid 0 closely matching hardware raid. But for write related performance hardware raid will win.
I no longer use onboard raid for my main work pcs but use hardware raid for storage (non-OS) as it's easier to manage and can be moved from motherboard to motherboard without any impact on the data. Also rebuilding of failed arrays (raid 5 etc) is much faster with hardware raid.