HP Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems Alternative fault-tolerance methods

Models: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems

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Item

RAID 0

RAID 1+0

RAID 5

RAID 6 (ADG)

 

 

 

 

 

Tolerates simultaneous failure of

No

Only if no two

No

Yes

more than one physical drive

 

failed drives are

 

 

 

 

in the same

 

 

 

 

mirrored pair

 

 

Read performance

High

High

High

High

 

 

 

 

 

Write performance

High

Medium

Low

Low

 

 

 

 

 

Relative cost

Low

High

Medium

Medium

 

 

 

 

 

*Values for the fraction of drive space usable are calculated with these assumptions: (1) all physical drives in the array have the same capacity; (2) online spares are not used; (3) no more than 14 physical drives are used per array for RAID 5; and (4) no more than 56 drives are used with RAID 6 (ADG).

Selecting a RAID method

NOTE: Not all controllers support RAID 6 (ADG).

Most important criterion

Also important

Suggested RAID level

 

 

 

 

Fault tolerance

Cost effectiveness

RAID 6

(ADG)

 

I/O performance

RAID 1+0

 

 

 

 

Cost effectiveness

Fault tolerance

RAID 6

(ADG)

 

I/O performance

RAID 5

(RAID 0 if fault tolerance is not required)

 

 

 

 

I/O performance

Cost effectiveness

RAID 5

(RAID 0 if fault tolerance is not required)

 

Fault tolerance

RAID 1+0

 

 

 

 

Alternative fault-tolerance methods

Your operating system may also support software-based RAID or controller duplexing.

Software-based RAID resembles hardware-based RAID, except that the operating system works with logical drives as if they were physical drives. To protect against data loss caused by physical drive failure, each logical drive must be in a different array from the others.

Controller duplexing uses two identical controllers with independent, identical sets of drives containing identical data. In the unlikely event of a controller failure, the remaining controller and drives will service all requests.

Neither of these alternative fault-tolerance methods supports online spares or automatic data recovery, nor do they support auto-reliability monitoring or interim data recovery.

If you decide to use one of these alternative methods, configure your arrays with RAID 0 for maximum storage capacity and refer to your operating system documentation for further implementation details.

Drive arrays and fault-tolerance methods 65

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HP Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems Alternative fault-tolerance methods, Selecting a RAID method