Setting up Raid0, whats the best stripe size for gaming?

brddog · Jan 6, 2006, 12:56 PM

Hello, I have Asus A8N Premium mobo that I'm setting set up in a Raid0 array using 2 western digital sata drives, what is the best or recommended strip size to go with? I mostly am building a system for gaming so if that makes a difference.

Also I've heard some talk about creating a partition at the front of the hd just for the paging files of XP. I have a gig of ram so would you say a 3gb partition would be good?

Then once XP is installed move the paging files to this partition. Would this benefit me for a gaming machine or just leave the paging files where they are on the C drive?

Thanks for any help here

mkk · Jan 6, 2006, 01:18 PM

If you made a relatively small partition of say 10GB for both WinXP and pagefile then that would be just as good. What's important is that the system files and pagefile are as close to each other as possible so that the drive head moves as little as possible. Then buy more RAM since RAM is always king.

I'm no expert on stripe sizes but many guides seem to indicate that the default value is good. Works good enough here anyway with a cheap Raid0 setup. You could have use for a third drive on the side for various things, like a quick backup of important files. Remember that a striped set of disks are twice as likely loose data since Raid0 has no safety built in.

brddog · Jan 6, 2006, 01:51 PM

Thank you for such the quick reply. Its funny you mentioned getting more ram because thats exactly what I was going to do, get another gig of Corsair, seems like the standard now a days is 2 gigs

If I am running 2 gigs and I take your recommendation of a 10gb partition for XP, what would I set the min and max levels to in the paging files? I believe if you set these values the same it can help

Yeah, I believe the default setting of my mobo is 64k for striping under Raid0, but I've heard of dropping this down to 32 in some cases, wasnt sure though

mkk · Jan 6, 2006, 02:53 PM

I thought for a while about picking 32k too, but reasoned that files are just getting bigger and bigger so the effect of smaller sizes might get old. Just a guess though.

I doubt that with 2GB RAM your system will use the pagefile so much. For instance I have 1.5GB myself and with a small pagefile of 256MB the usage rarely goes near half of it. I might be having it set low for no real reason though, as it wouldn't hurt to let it have one or two GB just to be really safe. Anyway it's more important to have a high minimum level to avoid the pagefile having to be being enlarged by the system. Whatever the maximum value is at then doesn't mean so much in comparison.

If you have 2GB RAM and set the minimum pagefile size to 1GB then it will hardly ever have to be increased because of gaming or other non-sientific uses. Just make sure that Windows is not set to do a full memory dump on crash in the Startup and Recovery settings, as that would require a pagefile at least as large as RAM. In fact set the memory dump setting to "(none)" since only developers can ever have use for debugging memory dump files.

brddog · Jan 6, 2006, 05:07 PM

Interesting about the start up and recovery settings, how do I access that? Will I find the setting you mentioned about memory dump in there? Thanks for your help too!

mkk · Jan 6, 2006, 05:20 PM

It's found at Control Panel > System > Advanced. By default it's only set at a miniscule 64k so unless some tweak utility has meddled with that then it's probably fine as it is. Just felt it was best to mention it.

Jan 6, 2006, 12:56 PM	#1
brddog DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	Setting up Raid0, whats the best stripe size for gaming? Hello, I have Asus A8N Premium mobo that I'm setting set up in a Raid0 array using 2 western digital sata drives, what is the best or recommended strip size to go with? I mostly am building a system for gaming so if that makes a difference. Also I've heard some talk about creating a partition at the front of the hd just for the paging files of XP. I have a gig of ram so would you say a 3gb partition would be good? Then once XP is installed move the paging files to this partition. Would this benefit me for a gaming machine or just leave the paging files where they are on the C drive? Thanks for any help here __________________ Athlon64 3700+ San Diego 1MB L2 Cache Asus A8N-SLI Premium 2x80GB Caviar SE ATA150's in Raid 0 ATI Radeon X800XL 256mb 1GB Corsair XMS512-3200C2 DDR400 Antec SmartPower2.0 500W Plextor DVD RW - Yamaha Cd/Rw Saitek Gamer's Keyboard Logitech MX50

Jan 6, 2006, 01:51 PM	Thread Starter #3
brddog DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	Thank you for such the quick reply. Its funny you mentioned getting more ram because thats exactly what I was going to do, get another gig of Corsair, seems like the standard now a days is 2 gigs If I am running 2 gigs and I take your recommendation of a 10gb partition for XP, what would I set the min and max levels to in the paging files? I believe if you set these values the same it can help Yeah, I believe the default setting of my mobo is 64k for striping under Raid0, but I've heard of dropping this down to 32 in some cases, wasnt sure though __________________ Athlon64 3700+ San Diego 1MB L2 Cache Asus A8N-SLI Premium 2x80GB Caviar SE ATA150's in Raid 0 ATI Radeon X800XL 256mb 1GB Corsair XMS512-3200C2 DDR400 Antec SmartPower2.0 500W Plextor DVD RW - Yamaha Cd/Rw Saitek Gamer's Keyboard Logitech MX50

Jan 6, 2006, 05:07 PM	Thread Starter #5
brddog DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	Interesting about the start up and recovery settings, how do I access that? Will I find the setting you mentioned about memory dump in there? Thanks for your help too! __________________ Athlon64 3700+ San Diego 1MB L2 Cache Asus A8N-SLI Premium 2x80GB Caviar SE ATA150's in Raid 0 ATI Radeon X800XL 256mb 1GB Corsair XMS512-3200C2 DDR400 Antec SmartPower2.0 500W Plextor DVD RW - Yamaha Cd/Rw Saitek Gamer's Keyboard Logitech MX50

Jan 6, 2006, 01:18 PM	#2
mkk Cthulhu/Dagon 2012 Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Gefle, Sweden Posts: 4,490 Rep Power: 132 System Specs	If you made a relatively small partition of say 10GB for both WinXP and pagefile then that would be just as good. What's important is that the system files and pagefile are as close to each other as possible so that the drive head moves as little as possible. Then buy more RAM since RAM is always king. I'm no expert on stripe sizes but many guides seem to indicate that the default value is good. Works good enough here anyway with a cheap Raid0 setup. You could have use for a third drive on the side for various things, like a quick backup of important files. Remember that a striped set of disks are twice as likely loose data since Raid0 has no safety built in.

Jan 6, 2006, 02:53 PM	#4
mkk Cthulhu/Dagon 2012 Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Gefle, Sweden Posts: 4,490 Rep Power: 132 System Specs	I thought for a while about picking 32k too, but reasoned that files are just getting bigger and bigger so the effect of smaller sizes might get old. Just a guess though. I doubt that with 2GB RAM your system will use the pagefile so much. For instance I have 1.5GB myself and with a small pagefile of 256MB the usage rarely goes near half of it. I might be having it set low for no real reason though, as it wouldn't hurt to let it have one or two GB just to be really safe. Anyway it's more important to have a high minimum level to avoid the pagefile having to be being enlarged by the system. Whatever the maximum value is at then doesn't mean so much in comparison. If you have 2GB RAM and set the minimum pagefile size to 1GB then it will hardly ever have to be increased because of gaming or other non-sientific uses. Just make sure that Windows is not set to do a full memory dump on crash in the Startup and Recovery settings, as that would require a pagefile at least as large as RAM. In fact set the memory dump setting to "(none)" since only developers can ever have use for debugging memory dump files.

Jan 6, 2006, 05:20 PM	#6
mkk Cthulhu/Dagon 2012 Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Gefle, Sweden Posts: 4,490 Rep Power: 132 System Specs	It's found at Control Panel > System > Advanced. By default it's only set at a miniscule 64k so unless some tweak utility has meddled with that then it's probably fine as it is. Just felt it was best to mention it.