Rebuilding Raid 1 set up

Kubuntu 10.04.1 LTS 64 bit system.

I am about to rebuild my Raid 1 setup, using 2 750GB drives, and I have some questions about the recommended best practice.

1. What file system should I use? I have mostly use ext3 file systems in the past, and they seem to perform well. I have seen recommendations against ext4, and from what I have read ReiserFS seems to be problematic. I don't know much about XFS. Are there any others I should consider? Most of the files will be "small" (under 1 Mb). Some of the directories on it will be exported by both NFS and Samba.

2. Do I need to format the drives individually before building the array? I always have in the past, creating a single partition on each drive. Is there any advantage to creating 2 (or more) partitions?

3. On advice received earlier, I will specify metadata 1.2.

4. How do I determine the physical sector size for the drive? (They are Western Digital). How do I then create my partition(s) to take best advantage of this information.?

Thanks for your time.

William.

I know you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure that you realize that what you heard was not what I meant.