NOTE: /dev/md0 can be used now just as any other block device.

• The script at http://busybox.net/~aldot/mkfs_stride.html can be used to calculate the best settings for the filesystem:

  mkfs.ext4 -b 4096 -E stride=128,stripe-width=256 /dev/md0

  • where
    • RAID chunk size (in KiB): 512
    • Number of filesystem blocks (in KiB): 4

• blocksize (in KiB) = 4
• chunksize (in KiB) = 512
• stride = chunksize / blocksize = 512 / 4 = 128;
  • IMPORTANT: stride has to be multiple of 2!
• effective_disks =
  • If Raid6 = number of disks - 2.
  • if Raid5 = number of disks - 1.
  • if Raid1 = number of disks / 2.
  • if Raid10 = number of disks / 2.
• stripe-width = stride * effective_disks;