Hey guys,
This is for my Home Lab running ESXi 5.1.0, 1483097.
I am upgrading the VM datastore from RAID5 to RAID10 to improve performance; but have a question regarding Strip Size.
I am using LSI 9266-8i Controller.
I run about 50-60 VMs - mostly Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2012 R2, and about 8-10 Linux VMs.
My current RAID5 disk configuration is: 3 X 2TB WD RE4 Enterprise Disks
Strip Size = 1MB
My upgrade plan is: RAID10 @ 4 X 2TB WD RE4 Enterprise Disks.
What should be the Strip Size of the RAID10 array for the best performance? I have options from: 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, and 1024 KB
Any advise much appreciated!
Thanks,
Low
Stripe size and performance associated with it is dependent on the workload. If you have larger "chunks" of data, a higher stripe size would be better, and for smaller, more fragmented I/O (which is for you I guess), a smaller stripe size would fit. Therefor, I'd go with the 64K option.
Two things might be worth to consider:
1. filesystem-spec: vmfs-5 has blocksize 1MB (sub-block 8kB)
2. hardware properties: common disks have sector-size 512B/4kB, and SSDs have "erase block size"