What is RAID? RAID Tips, Levels and Benefits

In this article, we can discuss additional rai, raid tips, and their levels and benefits. RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks. It's a data storage virtualization technology that provides a way of storing the same data in different places on multiple hard disks. It improves the performance by placing the data on multiple disks. The input/ output (I/ O) operations can overlap in a balanced way and it reduces the risk of losing all data if one drive fails. RAID storage uses multiple disks in order to provide fault tolerance and it increases the storage capacity of the system. These disks can be combined into different array configurations known as RAID levels. Raid levels have their own characteristics like fault- tolerance, performance, and capacity. Fault tolerance is the capability to survive one or several portion failures. Performance shows the change in the read and writes speed of the entire array as compared to a single portion. The capacity of the array is determined by the measure of addict data that can be written to the array. RAID can be used in large file servers, transactions of application servers where data obtainability is critical, and fault tolerance is challenged. RAID is an emerging storage technology with the potential to change the data-depository technology. A typical RAID unit contains a set of disk drives, which is the same as a single large-capacity shiver drive.


RAID Storage Techniques


The main data storage techniques in the array are:

1) Striping: In this storage system it splits the flow of data into blocks of a certain size called block size then these blocks are written across the RAID one by one. This type of data storage affects performance.

2) Reflecting: In this storage system the identical copies of data are stored on the RAID members simultaneously. This way of data storage affects the fault tolerance as well as the performance.

3) Parity: In this storage system uses striping and checksum methods. A certain parity function is calculated for the data blocks. The missing blocks can be recalculated from the checksum, providing the RAID fault sufferance.


RAID LEVELS


1) RAID 0: Striped disk array without fault tolerance. RAID 0 provides great performance, both in read and write operations. There's no overhead caused by parity controls and this technology is easy to implement.

2) RAID 1: (Mirroring and duplexing) RAID 1 provides excellent read speed and a write-speed that's comparable to that of a single drive. RAID 1 is a really simple technology and if a drive fails, data is copied to the replacement drive.

3) RAID 2: (Error-correcting coding) RAID 2 is rarely used and is similar to RAID 5. Instead of disk striping using parity, striping occurs at the bit level. In RAID 2 it stripes data at the bit (rather than block) level and uses a Hamming code for error correction. It's the only original level of RAID that isn't presently used.

4) RAID 3: (Bit-interleaved parity) It consists of byte-level striping with a dedicated parity disk. It performs poorly when there are a lot of little requests for data, as in a database, so this RAID type isn't presently used.

5) RAID 4: (Dedicated parity drive) RAID 4 is good for sequential data access and provides good performance of random reads, while the performance of random writes is low due to the need to write all equivalency data to a single disk. It consists of block-level striping with a dedicated parity disk.

6) RAID 5: (Block interleaved distributed equality) RAID 5 provides excellent Performance and Full Fault Tolerance. It can be rebuilt from Equality information from all drives and used in file servers, web servers, and important backups. Read data transition are really fast while writing data transactions is slower (due to the equality that has to be calculated).

7) RAID 6: (Independent data disks with double equality) RAID 6 provides full Fault tolerance. It's a large, reliable, relatively expensive storage and uses a block pattern similar to RAID5, but utilizes two different equality functions to derive two different equality blocks per row.

8) RAID 10 (A stripe of the mirror) RAID 10 is a combination of RAID 1 and 0. It's often denoted as RAID 1+0. It combines the mirroring of RAID 1 with the striping of RAID 0. RAID 10 provides a good read and write performance. It can be used in Database storage for high performance and availability.


Benefits of RAID


1) Higher Data Security

2) Fault Tolerance

3) Increase the equivalence check and regularly checks for any possible system crash

4) Reading and Writing of data done simultaneously.

5) Improved Availability and performance.

6) Ensures data reliability


Disadvantages of RAID


1) It doesn’t make data recovery any easier.

2) Cannot fully protect your data.

3) Expensive

4) It may slow the system performance if not used properly


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