Interleave Depth and Stripe-Unit Size

Interleave Depth and Stripe-Unit Size

With RAID technology, data is striped  across an array of hard disk drives.
This data-distribution scheme complements the way the operating system requests data.

The granularity at which data from one file is stored on one drive of the array before subsequent data is stored on the next drive of the array is called the interleave depth .

You can control the interleave depth and maximize the performance of your ServeRAID controller by setting a stripe-unit size that is close to the size of the system I/O requests.
You can set the stripe-unit size to 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, or 64 KB.
For example, performance in transaction-based environments, which typically involve large blocks of data, might be optimal when the stripe-unit size is set to 32 KB or 64 KB; however, performance in file and print environments, which typically involve multiple small blocks of data, might be optimal when the stripe-unit size is set to 8 KB or 16 KB.

The collection, in logical order of these stripe units, from the first drive of the array to the last drive of the array, is called a stripe .
(See 'Using the Menu Bar' for more information.)