Because surface roughness is similar to the size of the sealing gap in terms of scale, the effect of surface roughness on sealing performance must be considered. A calculation model determining the micro-gap flow and surface roughness is used to prove that the existence of surface roughness can effectively improve the sealing performance and that it can especially improve the opening force. The results indicated that the opening force of the lubrication film increases as the surface roughness increases and that the growth rate increases as the rotating speed increases. Due to different roughness sensitivities, the opening force increases differently in different parts of the seal. With regard to leakage, the roughness of the rotating ring’s grooved zone only increases the negative leakage when the rotating speed is higher than 8000 rpm. When the non-grooved zone of the rotating ring is rough, it can inhibit the negative leakage flow and cause the negative leakage to become positive when the rotating speed is higher than 1000 rpm. When the end face of the stationary ring is rough, the amount of leakage decreases. Furthermore, the surface roughness increases the friction torque when the rotating speed is higher than 5000 rpm. When the rotating speed is in the range of 1000–10,000 rpm, the roughness of the non-grooved area and the end face of the rotating ring increase the opening force by 2.40~57.94% and 3.55~69.33%, respectively. Meanwhile, by defining SF and SQ, a scheme for providing sealing performance is provided.