Exploring the performance impact of stripe size on network attached storage systems

Network attached storage (NAS) integrates redundant array of independent disks (RAID) subsystem that consists of multiple disk drives to aggregate storage capacity, I/O performance and reliability based on data striping and distribution. Traditionally, the stripe size is an important parameter that has a great influence on the RAID subsystem performance, whereas the performance impact has been changed due to the development of disk drive technologies and some I/O optimization methods. Based on disk drive access time, this paper constructs a performance analysis model to exploit the impact of some I/O optimization approaches including sub-commands combination, storage interface augment, and I/O scatter/gather on the stripe size of NAS. The analysis results and experimental validation indicate that due to the evolution of hardware and software, the stripe size has a negligible performance impact on NAS when the disk drives involved are organized in a RAID0 pattern.