AMCC 9550SX, 9500S, 9590SE, 9650SE manual RAID 10 Configuration Example

Chapter 1. Introduction to the 3ware Command Line Interface

Figure 5. RAID 10 Configuration Example

RAID 50

RAID 50 is a combination of RAID 5 with RAID 0. This array type provides fault tolerance and high performance. RAID 50 requires a minimum of six drives.

Several combinations are available with RAID 50. For example, on a 12-port controller, you can have a grouping of 3, 4, or 6 drives. A grouping of 3 means that the RAID 5 arrays used have 3 disks each; four of these 3-drive RAID 5 arrays are striped together to form the 12-drive RAID 50 array. On a 16-port controller, you can have a grouping of 4 or 8 drives.

In addition, RAID 50 arrays offer a higher degree of fault tolerance than RAID 1 and RAID 5, since the array can sustain multiple drive failures without data loss. For example, in a twelve-drive RAID 50 array, up to one drive in each RAID 5 set can fail and the array will continue to function. Please note that if two or more drives in a RAID 5 set fail, then all of the data will be lost.

14 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller CLI Guide