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2. What Is RAID

RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks

RAID technology manages multiple disk drives to enhance I/O performance and provide redundancy in order to withstand the failure of any individual member, without loss of data.

Disk Striping (RAID 0)

Striping is a performance-oriented, non-redundant data mapping technique. While Striping is discussed as a RAID Set type, it is actually does not provide fault tolerance. With modern SATA bus mastering technology, multiple I/O operations can be done in parallel, enhancing performance. Striping arrays use multiple disks to form a larger virtual disk.

Disk Mirroring (RAID 1)

Disk mirroring creates an identical twin for a selected disk by having the data simultaneously written to two disks. This redundancy provides instantaneous protection from a single disk failure. If a read failure occurs on one drive, the system reads the data from the other drive.

Mirrored-Striping (RAID 0+1 also known as RAID 10)

A Mirrored-Striping Set does just what it says, combining both Striping and Mirroring technologies to provide both the performance enhancements that come from Striping and the data availability and integrity that comes from Mirroring. When data is written to a Mirrored-Striped Set, instead of creating just one virtual disk as Striping would do, a second, Mirrored virtual disk is created as well.

Parity RAID (RAID 5)

Parity or RAID 5 adds fault tolerance to Disk Striping by including parity information with the data. Parity RAID dedicates the equivalent of one disk for storing parity stripes. The data and parity information is arranged on the disk array so that parity is written to different disks. There are at least 3 members to a Parity RAID set. The following example

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Lindy 51127 What Is RAID, Disk Striping RAID, Disk Mirroring RAID, Mirrored-Striping RAID 0+1 also known as RAID