Chapter 1. Introduction to the 3ware Command Line Interface
Available RAID Configurations
The following RAID levels and configurations are available for drives attached to a
•RAID 0
•RAID 1
•RAID 5
•RAID 10
•Single Disk
•Hot Spare
Note: You may notice mention of RAID 50 in the Command Syntax sections of the CLI Guide. RAID 50 requires six or more drives, and so is not available using the
For how to configure RAID units, see “Configuring a New Unit” on page 34.
RAID 0
RAID 0 provides improved performance, but no fault tolerance. Since the data is striped across more than one disk, RAID 0 disk arrays achieve high transfer rates because they can read and write data on more than one drive simultaneously. The stripe size is configurable during unit creation. Requires a minimum of two drives.
When drives are configured in a striped disk array (see Figure 1), large files are distributed across the multiple disks using RAID 0 techniques.
Striped disk arrays give exceptional performance, particularly for data intensive applications such as video editing, computer aided design and geographical information systems.
RAID 0 arrays are not fault tolerant. The loss of any drive results in the loss of all the data in that array, and can even cause a system hang, depending on your operating system. RAID 0 arrays are not recommended for high availability systems unless additional precautions are taken to prevent system hangs and data loss.
10 | 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide for the Power Mac G5 |