Hello,

What should the stripe size be set to for optimal performance with Filemaker Server 9 on a three disk RAID 5 array?

Our hardware:

4 x 36GB SCSI hard-drives with 3 in the array and a hot spare

Adaptec 3210s RAID controller

Thanks,

I would love to know the answer to this also. I am about to set up a 4 disk raid and in my research some people say that if you have a stripe size that is not optimal you may actually decrease performance.

Please, does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks.

I can't give either of you all a definite answer on this matter. I can make some inquiries. However, here are two items to consider:

1. If using RAID, I believe FMI recommends RAID 10 rather than RAID 5.

2. RAID is not a requirement for effective FileMaker Server deployment.

Steven

Thanks for your response. I just purchased a CalDigit Raid card to go in my Mac Pro and I purchased 5 10000rpm Sata II drives. I was going to hook up 4 drives to the raid controller, either raid 5 or raid 10 for the database files and then hook the 5th drive up to the mac pro SATA controller for the OS. I have been researching on the web what the ideal setup would be and there are so many differing opinions and nothing seems to be clear cut. Any thoughts on how I can squeeze the best performance out of my setup, hard drive wise?

Thanks.

I dont believe that you will notice much difference in the performance if you use a RAID configuration.

IMO, it is a very very small sacrafice in comparison to a possibility of Data loss.

FileMaker Server is very taxing on the Hard Drive and I always recommend going with good HDs with a very fast interface / bus.

SCSI or SAS drives, not SATA drives.

Steven

The SATA drives I am getting are the Western Digital Raptor drives that are 10k RPM and 300mb/s. Do you think a SAS drive would give me that much better performance? Why?

Thanks.

The issue is not speed. It's physical integrity and mean time between failure of SCSI or SAS vrs. SATA.

Take a look at the Server Tech Brief on the FMI Web Site.

Steven