Redundant Array of Inexpensive disks
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks which was later interpreted to
Redundant Array of Independent Disks. This technology is now used in almost all the IT
organizations looking for data redundancy and better performance. It combines multiple
available disks into 1 or more logical drive and gives you the ability to survive one or
more drive failures depending upon the RAID level used.
Raid contains groups or sets or Arrays. A combine of drivers make a group of disks to
form a RAID Array or RAID set. It can be a minimum of 2 number of disk connected to
a raid controller and make a logical volume or more drives can be in a group. Only one
Raid level can be applied in a group of disks. Raid are used when we need excellent
performance.
1
Redundant Array of Inexpensive disks
Software RAID and Hardware RAID
Software RAID have low performance, because of consuming resource from hosts. Raid
software need to load for read data from software raid volumes. Before loading raid
software, OS need to get boot to load the raid software. No need of Physical hardware
in software raids. Zero cost investment.
Hardware RAID have high performance. They are dedicated RAID Controller which is
Physically built using PCI express cards. It won’t use the host resource. They have
NVRAM for cache to read and write. Stores cache while rebuild even if there is power-
failure, it will store the cache using battery power backups. Very costly investments
needed for a large scale.
2
Hardware Raid look like below:
3
Featured Concepts of RAID
Parity method in raid regenerate the lost content from parity saved information’s. RAID 5,
RAID 6 Based on Parity.
Stripe is sharing data randomly to multiple disk. This won’t have full data in a single disk.
If we use 3 disks half of our data will be in each disks.
Mirroring is used in RAID 1 and RAID 10. Mirroring is making a copy of same data. In RAID
1 it will save the same content to the other disk too.
Hot spare is just a spare drive in our server which can automatically replace the failed
drives. If any one of the drive failed in our array this hot spare drive will be used and rebuild
automatically.
Chunks are just a size of data which can be minimum from 4KB and more. By defining
chunk size we can increase the I/O performance.
4
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID’s are in various Levels. Here we will see only the RAID Levels which is used mostly in
real environment.
RAID0 = Striping
RAID1 = Mirroring
RAID5 = Single Disk Distributed Parity
RAID6 = Double Disk Distributed Parity
RAID10 = Combine of Mirror & Stripe. (Nested RAID)
5
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 0
This level strips the data into multiple available drives equally giving a very high read and
write performance but offering no fault tolerance or redundancy. This level does not
provides any of the RAID factor and cannot be considered in an organization looking for
redundancy instead it is preferred where high performance is required.
Calculation:
No. of Disk: 5
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 500GB
6
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 0
Pros Cons
Data is stripped into multiple drives No support for Data Redundancy
Disk space is fully utilized No support for Fault Tolerance
Minimum 2 drives required No error detection mechanism
High performance Failure of either disk results in complete data loss in respective array
7
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 1
This level performs mirroring of data in drive 1 to drive 2. It offers 100% redundancy as
array will continue to work even if either disk fails. So organization looking for better
redundancy can opt for this solution but again cost can become a factor.
Calculation:
No. of Disk: 2
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 100GB
8
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 1
Pros Cons
Performs mirroring of data i.e identical data from one Expense is higher (1 extra drive required per drive for
drive is written to another drive for redundancy. mirroring)
High read speed as either disk can be used if one disk
Slow write performance as all drives has to be updated
is busy
Array will function even if any one of the drive fails
Minimum 2 drives required
9
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 5 (or) Distributed Parity
RAID 5 is mostly used in enterprise levels. RAID 5 work by distributed parity method. Parity
info will be used to rebuild the data. It rebuilds from the information left on the remaining
good drives. This will protect our data from drive failure.
Assume we have 4 drives, if one drive fails and while we replace the failed drive we can
rebuild the replaced drive from parity informations. Parity information’s are Stored in all 4
drives, if we have 4 numbers of 1TB hard-drive. The parity information will be stored in
256GB in each drivers and other 768GB in each drives will be defined for Users. RAID 5 can
be survive from a single Drive failure, If drives fails more than 1 will cause loss of data’s.
10
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 5 (or) Distributed Parity
Excellent Performance
Reading will be extremely very good in speed.
Writing will be Average, slow if we won’t use a Hardware RAID Controller.
Rebuild from Parity information from all drives.
Full Fault Tolerance.
1 Disk Space will be under Parity.
Can be used in file servers, web servers, very important backups.
11
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 6 Two Parity Distributed Disk
RAID 6 is same as RAID 5 with two parity distributed system. Mostly used in a large number
of arrays. We need minimum 4 Drives, even if there 2 Drive fails we can rebuild the data
while replacing new drives.
Very slower than RAID 5, because it writes data to all 4 drivers at same time. Will be
average in speed while we using a Hardware RAID Controller. If we have 6 numbers of 1TB
hard-drives 4 drives will be used for data and 2 drives will be used for Parity.
12
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 6 Two Parity Distributed Disk
Poor Performance.
Read Performance will be good.
Write Performance will be Poor if we not using a Hardware RAID Controller.
Rebuild from 2 Parity Drives.
Full Fault tolerance.
2 Disks space will be under Parity.
Can be Used in Large Arrays.
Can be use in backup purpose, video streaming, used in large scale.
13
Featured Concepts of RAID
RAID 10 (or) Mirror & Stripe
RAID 10 can be called as 1+0 or 0+1. This will do both works of Mirror & Striping. Mirror
will be first and stripe will be the second in RAID 10. Stripe will be the first and mirror will
be the second in RAID 01. RAID 10 is better comparing to 01.
14
