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SANtricity 11.8

What is cache block size?

Contributors netapp-jolieg

The storage array's controller organizes its cache into "blocks," which are chunks of memory that can be 8, 16, 32 KiB in size. All volumes on the storage system share the same cache space; therefore, the volumes can have only one cache block size.

Applications use different block sizes, which can have an impact on storage performance. By default, the block size in System Manager is 32 KiB, but you can set the value to 8, 16, 32 KiBs. A smaller size is a good choice for file systems or database applications. A larger size is a good choice for applications that require large data transfer, sequential I/O, or high bandwidth, such as multimedia.