What data stripe size to minimise extra writes in RAID0 for SSDs?

My laptop comes stock with two 64GB SSDs in RAID0. It is set up with a ~128GB RAID0 array with a data stripe size of 128 KB.

If I picked a lower stripe size like 4KB, would that closer match the SSD drive's erase block size or pages and reduce the amount written for small random writes?

Not sure if that makes sense, so just putting this question out here first as I plan to reinstall Windows 7 in the near future.

 

Stripe size is more for platter based HDD as the larger the stripe, the more time they have in order to get into position for a subsequent read or write operation that spans across more than one stripe size. However, since we're talking SSD, seek time is constant, so in that regards the stripe size there doesn't matter.

Now you have to think about the overhead of "chopping" data into stripes. The smaller the stripe size, the more distributed your data will be, however, the RAID portion must do a bit more checking to break the data into smaller parts. So there is a bit more overhead here.

However, while a larger size will result in less stripe detection, too large a stripe size will result in wasting space on the drive.

If you study your data usage patterns (like average file sizes you deal with, number of writes/reads per file), you could come up with something that better fits your needs. However, for the general case, I'd say either 64K or 128K is just fine. Others may want to share their experience.

BTW, pay attention to your perf numbers over time. Since you'll be using RAID 0, the current drivers do not support TRIM, so you may run into WRITE performance problems over time. To fix this you'll either need to log off - while leaving the drives active, and hope the SSD garbage collection routines address the issue, or you'll need to make an image, wipe the drives with a Secure Erase, and then restore. Some people have suggested using OCZ's Tony Trim as another option.

Also, since you will increase the risk of losing all data (since one drive goes, they all go) by using RAID 0, make sure you make frequent and reliable backups - assuming you care about the data on those drives.

 

I set my stripe size to 16k for my R2's RAID 0 array, haven't encountered an issue yet.

 

Raid 0 stripe 16 vs 64
Samsung 400/250 + toshiba 500/500
Gs70 msi notebook


64 more faster. On some reson screenshot have been turned out. Sorry.

 

I set my two 256GB PRO in RAID 0 at a 16KB stripe size as recommended by Intel.

That gives me the snappiest OS performance.

64KB is a good average if your data comprises between OS files and large game files but 128KB is overkill unless all you do is edit videos on that RAID array which I doubt you do.

Stick to 16KB if you want the best snappiness or 64KB if you want higher benchmarks although the 16KB gives me the best benchmarks in 4K speeds which is what matters most (to me at least)

 

Please people can you post test speed after month ormore usage?