As i understand, the performance issues with 4K disks isn’t just partition alignment, but also an issue with RAID-Z’s variable stripe size.
RAID-Z basically works to spread the 128KiB recordsizie upon on its data disks. That would lead to a formula like:
128KiB / (nr_of_drives – parity_drives) = maximum (default) variable stripe size
Let’s do some examples:
3-disk RAID-Z = 128KiB / 2 = 64KiB = good
4-disk RAID-Z = 128KiB / 3 = ~43KiB = BAD!
5-disk RAID-Z = 128KiB / 4 = 32KiB = good
9-disk RAID-Z = 128KiB / 8 = 16KiB = good
4-disk RAID-Z2 = 128KiB / 2 = 64KiB = good
5-disk RAID-Z2 = 128KiB / 3 = ~43KiB = BAD!
6-disk RAID-Z2 = 128KiB / 4 = 32KiB = good
10-disk RAID-Z2 = 128KiB / 8 = 16KiB = good
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