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RAID - what does strip size mean?
I consider myself somewhat knowlegable on RAID algorithms but I've just been reading someon's documentation I think I have fallen into a bit of a linguistic trap. So I ask other experts here to see if you fall into the same trap - it is a trick question but I'm not going to flame you if you get it wrong. It's more about reading nglish words than anything else so I'd like my peers input since the documentation says this is "industry standard" but I hadn't noticed it.
So what is strip size? that which is written on each disk before the econtroller moves onto the next one or the sum of all the strip elements in an array?
So what is strip size? that which is written on each disk before the econtroller moves onto the next one or the sum of all the strip elements in an array?
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Hmm, 20 years in this profession and I've never heard of "strip" in reference to RAID controllers or arrays, only "stripe". I guess I learned something new.
It is typical for hardware and software vendors to reconsider their earlier wordings and saying: eh, we were not right in calling this feature so and that feature so. Now it has better naming etc.
ASKER
Well spotted noxcho, they even have the audacity to claim most of the industry has always called it "strip" in http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02249094/c02249094.pdf.
Yeah, they quoted that in 2010 the wording/terming was changed. Page 6:
Most RAID levels are designed to provide increased read performance by distributing, or striping,
data across the set of physical drives that have been configured as a single logical drive. With
striping, each X number of bytes of data of the logical disk is placed on a different physical disk in
the array on a rotating basis. In industry terms, each set of X bytes is called a strip. A stripe is one
complete row of data strips across all of the drives in an array. HP configuration tools have used the
7
term stripe size to refer to what most of the industry refers to as the strip size, although this is being
changed in 2010.
The strip size for an array is configurable, and can be set from 16 KB up to 512 KB. In general, using
a larger strip (HP stripe) size delivers higher performance for a RAID array. The Array Configuration
Utility (ACU) determines the largest strip size that can be set for a given logical array based on the
RAID level of the array and the number of physical drives that it contains.
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I've used the ACU dozens of times and didn't spot it.
ASKER
I'll post a link to the offending HP document tomorrow and split poinks.