Windows Storage Spaces help - Allocation Unit Size with parity 4 drives.

[Artur Hawkwing]

Just after some clarification on how to optimize Windows Storage Spaces.

 

I currently have taken out of my PC 1TB SSD Samsung 860, 500GB SSD Crucial MX500 and a Seagate 2TB HDD and replaced them with 4 x 1.6TB Intel 3510 SSDs.

I also have a 256GB M.2 Intell 660p (OS) and a 1TB M.2 Adata 8200 pro (Games, disabling SATA ports 5&6)

 

If I pool the 4x1.6TB SSDs in a parity, I should have 3.2TB of available storage... I think? I think WSS uses 4 drives in parity as RAID 5 + spare. So if one drive fails, the spare is ready to go. Unless I have this wrong or set it up wrong when I was playing around

Though from my understanding, because I have 4 drives (4 columns), the allocation unit size does not divide nicely. 3 x data + 1 x parity. Compared if I used 3 x 1.6TB (3 columns) it would divide nicely to get me allocation unit size displayed in Disk Management ( 2 data x data + 1 parity).

 

If I however used Powershell to change the columns from 4 to 3, I would then have a even number to get me the right allocation unit size?

 

My question is now, if changing the columns to 3, would I then lose 1.6TB of storage? 

I am better off removing my 1TB M.2 SSD for Games freeing up SATA ports 5&6 and installing another 1.6TB Intel 3510 SSD to give me 4 columns by default? Would this affect gaming performance and load times having games stored in Windows Storage Pools?
 

Should I even use parity? Should I just use the Raid 0 (Simple) as only Movies, random programs, games (if it doesn't affect performance) and photos will be on there ( I have my photos stored on two external drives, another PC and cloud) Would Raid 0 (Simple) affect overall PC performance and would I also need to change the columns in Powershell to optimize the Simple Parity or should it work optimized already and I won't need to touch powerhsell or the default allocation unit size done by disk management (AKA leave it default) ?

 

I do have a LSI 9211-8i (IT mode) I could install. Place the 4 of the 1.6TB Intel SSDs on here, one connected directly to the motherboard + reinstall my 2TB HDD for movies/tv shows (though was just thinking of buying a external enclosure for this for my offsite photo backup that is not connected to any PC and only plugged in to back up back ups)
Though I do kind of see the LSI 9211-8i as a potential failure point and I've been told they can run quite hot. 

 

This is in my gaming/everyday use PC. It is by no means a server and on 24/7. I am looking for means to consolidate my drives. 

Any suggestions are welcomed. I like the idea of Windows Storage Spaces as it is integrated into Windows though open to a third party software if its a better option

 

Or am I over thinking it and should I just use the 4 x 1.6TB drives as individual drives? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

37 minutes ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

 

If I pool the 4x1.6TB SSDs in a parity, I should have 3.2TB of available storage... I think? I think WSS uses 4 drives in parity as RAID 5 + spare. So if one drive fails, the spare is ready to go. Unless I have this wrong or set it up wrong when I was playing around

with numberofcolumns set to 3, you have 66% of the disk space usable, so ~4.2TB here. With number of columns set to 4 you have 75% of space usable, so 4.8TB

 

39 minutes ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

If I however used Powershell to change the columns from 4 to 3, I would then have a even number to get me the right allocation unit size?

 

yup

 

40 minutes ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

 

My question is now, if changing the columns to 3, would I then lose 1.6TB of storage? 

you lose about .6TB if space.

 

40 minutes ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

 

Should I even use parity? Should I just use the Raid 0 (Simple) as only Movies, random programs, games (if it doesn't affect performance) and photos will be on there ( I have my photos stored on two external drives, another PC and cloud) Would Raid 0 (Simple) affect overall PC performance and would I also need to change the columns in Powershell to optimize the Simple Parity or should it work optimized already and I won't need to touch powerhsell or the default allocation unit size done by disk management (AKA leave it default) ?

If you have some data you don't really care about, making a raid 0 of those makes sense, then parity/mirror for the files that are more important.

 

41 minutes ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

Though I do kind of see the LSI 9211-8i as a potential failure point and I've been told they can run quite hot. 

 

You could replace it with any other HBA/Sata controller. unlike a raid card it doesn't hold any config.

 

 

[Artur Hawkwing]

32 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

you lose about .6TB if space.

Would your suggestion for parity with 4 drives, is to set columns to 3 then to get maximum performance in parity?

 

33 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you have some data you don't really care about, making a raid 0 of those makes sense, then parity/mirror for the files that are more important.

If I go for the raid 0 option, should I still do this in powershell or just use the GUI and default allocations? 

34 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you have some data you don't really care about, making a raid 0 of those makes sense, then parity/mirror for the files that are more important

I only care for the photos I have, and they are on the cloud + two external drives + my PC. I am also looking at building a smaller system to run 24/7 as photo storage only with remote access. 

42 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You could replace it with any other HBA/Sata controller. unlike a raid card it doesn't hold any config.

So a basic, non-raid sata card would still do the same thing in Window Storage Spaces? Something like SilverStone ECS06? And because the LSI card I have is in IT Mode it is basically just a SATA PCIE extension? 

@Electronics Wizardy

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

Would your suggestion for parity with 4 drives, is to set columns to 3 then to get maximum performance in parity?

 

I'd probably do this. A good amount of space, with pretty good write performance. 

 

1 hour ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

If I go for the raid 0 option, should I still do this in powershell or just use the GUI and default allocations? 

2 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

With raid 0 you want number of columns set to 4 for best speed. I think it still sets it to one.

 

If you want to do less commands you can make the pool in the gui, and just do the new-virtual disk command in powershell.

 

1 hour ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

So a basic, non-raid sata card would still do the same thing in Window Storage Spaces? Something like SilverStone ECS06? And because the LSI card I have is in IT Mode it is basically just a SATA PCIE extension? 

 

Yup, any card that allows the disks to show up to the system will work fine.  IT mode is basically a sata card. 

[Artur Hawkwing]

@Electronics Wizardy
Thanks for your feedback.

 

I think I will try the 4 disks in parity and fix it in Powershell. 4.2TB of storage is plenty enough for me at the moment and I will have the LSI card handy for future expansion. I will however expect that I would need to re-build the drives if I add more? If that is the case, I guess I would just create a new pool

 

I will have the M.2 1TB for my games which is plenty enough again + the 4.2TB of storage if needed. 
Just to clarify again, there is little to no difference in RAID 0 vs RAID 5 when it comes to gaming if I choose to put games in parity using SS? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Artur Hawkwing said:

@Electronics Wizardy
Thanks for your feedback.

 

I think I will try the 4 disks in parity and fix it in Powershell. 4.2TB of storage is plenty enough for me at the moment and I will have the LSI card handy for future expansion. I will however expect that I would need to re-build the drives if I add more? If that is the case, I guess I would just create a new pool

 

I will have the M.2 1TB for my games which is plenty enough again + the 4.2TB of storage if needed. 
Just to clarify again, there is little to no difference in RAID 0 vs RAID 5 when it comes to gaming if I choose to put games in parity using SS? 

I'd guess there is a small to no difference in games. Parity read performance is pretty good typically.

[Artur Hawkwing]

@Electronics Wizardy

 

I think I did it right! Check out these speeds from copy from M.2 to the parity SSDs

 

512KB set in AUS, 3 columns 

 

Now I am wonder if I should change the AUS to something smaller, as I do have photos on here...
 

I have a random assortment of programs, bench marking tools, etc on this drive also... these currently take up an additional 3GB of storage because of the current unit size of 512KB though these can be moved onto my OS drive or M.2 Games drive, thoughts?
My photos take up 28.7Gb when its actually 28GB
My multi copies of linux takes up 757Gb which is basically the same of actually storage
It is only the programs that seem to be using the additional space.
 

Should I go down to 256KB, 128KB or 64Kb or even less? Or keep it as is and just move the random programs I have

 

[Artur Hawkwing]

44 minutes ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

@Electronics Wizardy

 

I think I did it right! Check out these speeds from copy from M.2 to the parity SSDs! I am getting between 650-1GB

 

512KB set in AUS, 3 columns 

 

Now I am wonder if I should change the AUS to something smaller, as I do have photos on here...
 

I have a random assortment of programs, bench marking tools, etc on this drive also... these currently take up an additional 3GB of storage because of the current unit size of 512KB though these can be moved onto my OS drive or M.2 Games drive, thoughts?
My photos take up 28.7Gb when its actually 28GB
My multi copies of linux takes up 757Gb which is basically the same of actually storage
It is only the programs that seem to be using the additional space.
 

Should I go down to 256KB, 128KB or 64Kb or even less? Or keep it as is and just move the random programs I have

 

 

[Artur Hawkwing]

@Electronics Wizardy
if i changed to 128KB from 256KB in powershell that means I have to change disk management to 256KB?

 

would you know how much of a performance hit changing from 512KB to 256KB?

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 hours ago, Artur Hawkwing said:

@Electronics Wizardy
if i changed to 128KB from 256KB in powershell that means I have to change disk management to 256KB?

 

would you know how much of a performance hit changing from 512KB to 256KB?

Yea the optimal is the interleave size * number of data drives(so for single parity and number of columns set to 3, 3-1 = 2)

 

I don't think the hit would be huge typically with these bigger values though.

[Artur Hawkwing]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea the optimal is the interleave size * number of data drives(so for single parity and number of columns set to 3, 3-1 = 2)

 

I don't think the hit would be huge typically with these bigger values though.

I'm just confused on how to find the optimal interleave size

Is it just trial and error?

 

Also if a drive failed, I would assume Windows would tell me but would it tell me which SATA port the drive is on so I can remove it to replace it? 

 

And can you create a RAID 10 in Storage Spaces via Powershell? Would it be 2 way mirror with 2 columns, interleave of 256, 128, 64, etc would work as it 2 columns allowing an AUS of either 512, 256, 128...

 

And what are your thoughts on stablebit drivepool? would you use this over Windows Storage Spaces?