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Element Size & VMware
We just purchased a new PowerEdge 2950 III (PERC 6/i RAID controller) that we will be putting VMware ESX server on. The virtual machines will also be stored on the machine and not some sort of SAN (small VMware setup). I had a couple questions that I hope could be answered. In setting up the few RAID arrays we have on the machine (one RAID 10 and two RAID 1 arrays), what is the best element size to use when setting up the arrays? I kindof got the impression that I might want to use 128k, but I want to make sure before I move forward.
My other two questions that I think I already know the answer to are regarding read / write caching. I assume write back would be best for write caching (the controller is battery backed and the machine is UPS backed) and no read ahead--correct?
Thanks.
My other two questions that I think I already know the answer to are regarding read / write caching. I assume write back would be best for write caching (the controller is battery backed and the machine is UPS backed) and no read ahead--correct?
Thanks.
Dev Mgr
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Posted January 15th, 2008 02:00
I'd treat the element size the same as you would if you were running a regular OS on it; larger is faster for very non-random large reads and writes (e.g. backup to disk, streaming audio/video, etc) and smaller is better for highly random IO where the writes are mostly small.