EDIT: this got closed as being "opinion based". i disagree! the facts are, i have to choose one of five Chunk Size options when creating a RAID on Mac. i don't know which size to choose for a general purpose drive. i could use advice from those more knowledgeable on such matters on which size to choose. Not opinions, but factually & technically which size would be optimal for such purposes.
fyi: using macOS 13 Ventura on a Macbook Pro M1 Max.
i have an older Western Digital My Passport Pro with a Thunderbolt 2 interface (using an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter/dongle). it's the one with 2 HHD's in it.
it came setup as RAID 0 but formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". i want to reformat it to use "APFS" instead.
so using Disk Utility, i deleted the RAID and reformatted the drives. then upon using Disk Utility's RAID Assistant, i selected the RAID type to RAID 0 and selected the two newly reformatted drives. then on the next screen (Set Properties), under where you choose the Name & Format, there's a setting to select a "Chunk Size".
i've never seen this option before (granted it's been many many many years since i needed to re-RAID something), and i can't figure out which option to select...
the Chunk size options are: 16K, 32K, 64K, 128K, or 256K.
everything i've found to read on the subject says that's determined by how big the files you're working with are. to choose a small K when working with large videos & graphics files; and to choose a large K when working with smaller text based files.
but what if you have a mix for ALL kinds of files & sizes?
what would be the optimal Chunk size for a general purpose drive?
yes, i could just choose the middle one (64K) but i don't know if that's optimally average or if leaning to the left or right of middle would be better for such a mix of file types & sizes.
i did contact WD support and instead of just telling me what Chunk Size the drives came from the factory set at, their 'only' solution is for me to download/install their disk utility app. i had problems with that app working well two computers ago, so chose to not install it on my previous & current systems. i would rather a solution to be knowledge rather than 'another' app to clutter my mac innards just for this purpose. thanks.