Best RAID 0 settings

I am setting up a RAID 0 array and need some help with the settings. This
will be for video storage with most files being over 1GB... I am using a LSI
MegaRaid Elite 1600 controller card with a SuperMicro Drive cage/backplane.
There will be (5) 147GB 10k rpm drives. My questions are what are the best
settings to use.

What is the best stripe size for the array?

Also should I use:

1. No read ahead
2. Read Ahead
3. Adaptive Read Ahead....

1. Write Back
2. Write Thru.......

1. Direct I/O
2. Cached I/O..........

Thanks for the help..

Todd

Todd Hayslett <trhisdone@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am setting up a RAID 0 array and need some help with the settings. This
> will be for video storage with most files being over 1GB... I am using a LSI
> MegaRaid Elite 1600 controller card with a SuperMicro Drive cage/backplane.
> There will be (5) 147GB 10k rpm drives. My questions are what are the best
> settings to use.

kiss your data good bye. AMI card suck.

> What is the best stripe size for the array?

as large as possible,which may only be 256kB but that's fine. You're
dealing with large files.


> Also should I use:
>
> 1. No read ahead
> 2. Read Ahead
> 3. Adaptive Read Ahead....

#2 may help.

>
> 1. Write Back
> 2. Write Thru.......

doesn't matter.

>
> 1. Direct I/O
> 2. Cached I/O..........

You may need to test this one. you will inherently get good read and write
speeds with video stuff (large files, usually read in order). If you want
a raid card to look slow, do lots of small random reads and writes, all
over your disk.

Using a large block size in your filesystm will help as well with video
stuff.

If you are putting a RAID card a desktop PCI slot, you will be limited to 120MB/s.
A single SATA 7200 750GB drive is just as fast, or faster considering the 1600 is 7 years old.

"Todd Hayslett" <trhisdone@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1b58a$47d7881b$43d38641$25193@NAXS.COM...
>I am setting up a RAID 0 array and need some help with the settings. This will be for video
>storage with most files being over 1GB... I am using a LSI MegaRaid Elite 1600 controller card
>with a SuperMicro Drive cage/backplane. There will be (5) 147GB 10k rpm drives. My questions are
>what are the best settings to use.

Eric Gisin wrote in news:13tg3qserlc1j4a@corp.supernews.com
> If you are putting a RAID card a desktop PCI slot, you will be limited to
> 120MB/s.

> A single SATA 7200 750GB drive is just as fast,

Yeah, 3000 Mb/s obviously beats ~120MB/s handsdown.

> or faster considering the 1600 is 7 years old.

It's dual channel U160, so should do fine.

>
> "Todd Hayslett" <trhisdone@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1b58a$47d7881b$43d38641$25193@NAXS.COM...
> > I am setting up a RAID 0 array and need some help with the settings. This
> > will be for video storage with most files being over 1GB... I am using a
> > LSI MegaRaid Elite 1600 controller card with a SuperMicro Drive
> > cage/backplane. There will be (5) 147GB 10k rpm drives. My questions are
> > what are the best settings to use.