Lioninstreet
New Member
Can HWiNFO be used to find out what the stripe unit size on a HDD or a SSD is? I see the sector size displayed but not the stripe unit size?
Is it possible?
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Lioninstreet
New Member
Yes, Not too sharp with all the terms but I don't think drives without RAID have striping. Is that correct? The question comes from the below article.
Essential Correlations: Partition Offset, File Allocation Unit Size, and Stripe Unit Size
Use the information in this section to confirm the integrity of disk partition alignment configuration for existing partitions and new implementations.
There are two correlations which when satisfied are a fundamental precondition for optimal disk I/O performance. The results of the following calculations must result in an integer value:
Partition_Offset ÷ Stripe_Unit_Size
Stripe_Unit_Size ÷ File_Allocation_Unit_Size
Of the two, the first is by far the most important for optimal performance. The following demonstrates a common misalignment scenario: Given a starting partition offset for 32,256 bytes (31.5 KB) and stripe unit size of 65,536 bytes (64 KB), the result is 0.4921875. This is not an integer; therefore the offset & strip unit size are not correlated. This is consistent with misalignment.
However, a starting partition offset of 1,048,576 bytes (1 MB) and a stripe unit size of 65,536 bytes produces a result of exactly 8, an exact integer, which is consistent with alignment.
Note that file allocation unit (cluster) size commonly correlates with common stripe unit sizes. The performance question here is usually not one of correlation per the formula, but whether the cluster size is the NTFS default of 4,096 bytes or has been explicitly defined at 64 KB, which is a best practice for SQL Server.
Stripe Unit Size
Windows does not have a reliable way to determine stripe unit sizes. These values are obtained from vendor disk management software.
File Allocation Unit Size
Run this command for each drive to see the file allocation unit size reported in bytes per cluster.
Essential Correlations: Partition Offset, File Allocation Unit Size, and Stripe Unit Size
Use the information in this section to confirm the integrity of disk partition alignment configuration for existing partitions and new implementations.
There are two correlations which when satisfied are a fundamental precondition for optimal disk I/O performance. The results of the following calculations must result in an integer value:
Partition_Offset ÷ Stripe_Unit_Size
Stripe_Unit_Size ÷ File_Allocation_Unit_Size
Of the two, the first is by far the most important for optimal performance. The following demonstrates a common misalignment scenario: Given a starting partition offset for 32,256 bytes (31.5 KB) and stripe unit size of 65,536 bytes (64 KB), the result is 0.4921875. This is not an integer; therefore the offset & strip unit size are not correlated. This is consistent with misalignment.
However, a starting partition offset of 1,048,576 bytes (1 MB) and a stripe unit size of 65,536 bytes produces a result of exactly 8, an exact integer, which is consistent with alignment.
Note that file allocation unit (cluster) size commonly correlates with common stripe unit sizes. The performance question here is usually not one of correlation per the formula, but whether the cluster size is the NTFS default of 4,096 bytes or has been explicitly defined at 64 KB, which is a best practice for SQL Server.
Stripe Unit Size
Windows does not have a reliable way to determine stripe unit sizes. These values are obtained from vendor disk management software.
File Allocation Unit Size
Run this command for each drive to see the file allocation unit size reported in bytes per cluster.
Lioninstreet
New Member
Thanks Martin.