RAID 0 best size stripe for games ?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by stevevnicks, Oct 25, 2014.

  1. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    I just got a couple of 7200rpm WD 1TB Blue HDD, which I have just setup a disk array RAID 0 and the stripe to 64KB then formatted the drive with an allocation size of 64k, I think the 64KB RAID drive is split into two 32KB for each drive ? so would I be correct in thinking formatting with 64k allocation size this will ensure any file size over 32k will be split between the drives ? or am I totally wrong lol I don't fully understand RAID, if anyone can advise best stripe and file allocation size it would be very handy and very much appreciated.
     
  2. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    I don`t think you need RAID to cope with load that games can create.
     
  3. h4rm0ny

    h4rm0ny Guest

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    By that reasoning, you wouldn't need SSD either, yet many see a benefit. RAID-0 "stripes" the data across all drives included in the RAID. The result of this is that both writes and reads are usually faster.

    To the OP: think of it as layers in a cake. Bottom layer are the drives themselves (and their firmware). Then there is whatever RAID system you are using (you haven't said so I don't know if this is some hardware RAID, using Windows Dynamic Disks or what). And then on top of that is the file system.

    You're asking whether you need to match the allocation size of the file system to the stripe size in the RAID-0. The two are not actually connected exactly. If the OS writes a 64KB block to the RAID and the stripe size is 32KB then you'll get half of it on one disk and half of it on another. You are correct in this. However, neither the OS nor the RAID particularly care. To the OS, it's just one giant disk.

    The real question with stripe size is less about the file allocation size and more about your use cases. The larger your stripe size, the faster large sequential reads are. The smaller they are, the faster small random writes are. So if, for example, you were using a swap file (e.g. Windows virtual memory or whatever it is called these days) you would want a really small stripe size. I think 4K is the block size for Windows swap so a stripe size of 4K with two disks would basically be doubling the speed of Windows swapping to disk. For me that's nonsense because I have 12GB of RAM and if my system ever does swap to disk (been a while ;) ) I'm literally going to just buy more RAM until it stops. My use cases are more about long reads of sequential data - e.g. video files or logs. I would imagine that as a gamer, you're loading textures, maps, quicktime movies, whatever. In this case, you'd actually benefit from a larger stripe size.

    How does the file allocation block size affect all this? Well indirectly, really. They're different layers of the cake and there's no direct link between the two. The file allocation size will INFLUENCE how the data gets written to the RAID but really it's the type of data that's going to matter. Whether your filesystem is using blocks of 4K, 32K or 64K is going to be much less of a question as to whether you're reading a long video file or writing thousands of database updates to files in a pseudo-random pattern (to pick an extreme opposite example).

    I don't know how much help all of that is. What I'm really saying is that your post is better posed as two SEPARATE questions - (1) What is the best block size for my file system and (2) what is the best stripe size for my RAID-0. Don't make them one question.

    But the best advice I can give you is this: back up your data. If you've got a two-disk RAID-0 you have just doubled your chance of losing your data due to a disk failure. It's why I favour RAID-10. ;)

    HTH.
     
  4. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Especially on good dedicated hardware RAID controller.

    As for benefits, while I do not experience stuttering, freezes etc due to simple SATA HDD used in my rig, I do not care about SSDs and RAIDs, about decreasing OS boot time and applications load time. When applications will start to suffer from average HDD performance, I will care about SSD. Business, enterprise, professional use cases are another story, ofc.
     

  5. Cyberdyne

    Cyberdyne Guest

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    You're right. You don't. No game needs RAID 0 or an SSD to load properly and timely. If you're an enthusiast doing it for fun, and just want to see a game load in 3 seconds instead of 5 seconds, then by all means go for it. But that doesn't mean what mbk wasn't true.
     
  6. h4rm0ny

    h4rm0ny Guest

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    When we're talking about playing games, the word 'need' has a different value - inherently subjective - given that nobody needs to play games in the first place. What different people consider acceptable standards for games is (and should) vary wildly.

    I didn't say whether RAID-0 was or was not necessary for games. I observed that by the reasoning given, SSD's wouldn't be needed either. Yet many are they who have invested in SSDs to improve their games.

    What I was trying to do was answer the OP's question in a helpful way. If this were a forum for flower-arranging and someone asked what they should do to play games, I would give them a basic answer that met their needs. This is not a forum for flower-arranging. This is Guru3D. If someone wants to use a RAID to squeeze out a little more speed from their load times, then the correct answer is "sure - here's some information". Especially when they have already bought the disks.
     
  7. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    You are right.
    But to prolong conversation, 'guru' doesn`t mean 'performance for the sake of performance'. As I understand 'guru' means knowledge, wisdom. Ain`t the forum with 'overclockers' in title the better place for OP question?
     
  8. pimp_gimp

    pimp_gimp Ancient Guru

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    Here's a handy little article explaining stripe size benefits
     
  9. h4rm0ny

    h4rm0ny Guest

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    I think there's a place for both. I just figured sometimes there's a case for reigning in someone's enthusiasm with a bit of reality to prevent them running over a cliff ("OMG!Bulldozerhaseightcoresgottabuy!"), and sometimes there's a case for joining them with a bit of arcane software configuration ("you want to get your 8350 up to 5GHz? Let's do it!"). I'm just really cautious of meeting the second type with the first response - a lot of people love squeezing a few extra frames out of their system and honestly, I find things like file systems fascinating and fun. So I err on the side of the latter. :)

    Anyway, 'nuff said and all is good. I understand where you're coming from!

    H.
     
  10. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    i didn't say you need a raid set up to play games, that's my choice, that's all. gives me something to mess around with.
    i was simply asking what would be the best size stripe to use, for putting games on and that's it .. i don't care if you don't need a raid array to play games on i just want to lol im testing an messing around like i always do, so hopefully no one will have a problem with that ? lol ....

    last time i used an raid array few years back camalot would zone crap loads faster so i dunno ...
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2014

  11. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Another point: I am always for 'test and measure yourself' approach, but have you means to investigate/track the RAID settings influence on games? When one tweaks GPU/CPU/RAM settings he can view FPS with dedicated tools like MSI AB. But how to estimate which RAID stripe setting is better for your rig and games? (And even difference between SATA and RAID modes?...)
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2014
  12. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    Games use small writes/reads therefore you'll want a smaller stripe size, 32KB will be good. Default 128KB is OK, but more geared towards sequential read/writes.

    MBK you dont know what you're missing. Ill never use another HDD in my rig, can't go back from raid 0 ssds.
     
  13. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    =)
    I know what I am missing. It`s just of no importance to me. If I would do some job which depends on i/o speed then I would use RAID, SSD. Even at work it doesn`t matter whether project is built in 10 minutes or 1, because writing the source code is much slower and quality of my work doesn`t depend on compilation speed.

    But what can you say about tools for evaluation of RAID stripe setting influence? You recommended particular value for a stripe - how to check whether it is optimal?
     
  14. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    Ive checked various stripe size + windows allocation size using AS SSD bench

    32KB is best for all around, sequential + small read/writes for smaller files, ie 4k.

    128KB default is best for sequential + write with default 4kb allocation, whereas 32kb + 8kb block size(this happens to be my SSDs block size) was best for small file read + writes, but sequential read suffers(doesnt matter for games)
     
  15. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    But that is extrapolation of synthetic benchmark results to the games.
    Anyway what read-write pattern is demonstrated by games? I can`t imagine the source of random read-write operations in games. I suspect that files with cutscenes and files with textures are read sequentially. I don`t know about files with game level data, but I don`t see the purpose of random reading with them. Only write operation in game is saves, right? And why save game randomly? (Edit: Except if save file is single and saves go to different parts of it.)

    Edit: It is much easier to estimate storage subsystem performance (on real data, under real load) in business, enterprise software like SQL server then in software like games.
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2014

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