Conclusion & Recommendations

Configuring the optimal RAID solution actually depends a lot on what you intend to use it for. For most business environments where data availability is of extreme importance, RAID 1 would be the best choice.

We have already seen in the WinBench disk tests that although RAID 1 (mirroring) theoretically cuts writing performance in half, that fact did not really translate into bad scores in the tests. In fact, it was at the very least on par with a normal single hard disk drive setup. So, there's really nothing to lose but all to gain from a RAID 1 array.

For casual users or gamers, you would probably want the faster data throughput that RAID 0 (striping) offers. As we have examined so far, stripe sizes between 2 KB up till 16 KB seem to offer the best read performance. However, certain stripe sizes are quite bad when it comes to writing as we have seen in the HDTach results. In the end, the stripe sizes of 4 KB and 16 KB appeared to be the best overall choices for optimal read and write speeds.

For extremely high-end users who play around with applications that read and write really, really large files (i.e. Photoshop, Premiere), RAID 0 with a large stripe size would be a better choice. As we have seen in the High-End DiskMark results, the 512 KB stripe size seems to be the best stripe size.

Even with those recommendations, I would still like to point out that there is no ultimate configuration when it comes to setting up RAID solutions. Certain stripe size may appeal to some applications but not the others. This is mainly due to different file sizes that are being read or written.

Furthermore, you may be writing a humungous file today but the next day, you might need to transfer thousands of small files in and out of the RAID array. This makes it rather hard to determine which setup is the best. You'll probably need to try out a few setups before you find a suitable one.

However, the hassle isn't really worth it as you can't just change stripe sizes. The process is akin to repartitioning your hard disk drives! So, if you don't want to go through all the hassle of finding out the optimal stripe size for your RAID 0 array, I recommend that you use RAID 0 with either a 4 KB or 16 KB stripe size if you need speed.

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