title: Optimum file buffer read size?
body: <p>I am writing an application which needs to read fairly large files. I have always wondered what's the optimum size for the read buffer on a modern Windows XP computer. I googled and found many examples which had 1024 as the optimum size. </p>
  
  <p>Here is a snippet of what I mean:</p>
  
  <pre><code>long pointer = 0;
  buffer = new byte[1024]; // What's a good size here ?
  while (pointer &lt; input.Length)
  {
      pointer += input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My application is fairly simple, so I am not looking to write any benchmarking code, but would like to know what sizes are common?</p>