
RAID 50
| RAID 50 provides the features of both RAID 0 and RAID 5. RAID 50 includes both parity and |
| disk striping across multiple drives. RAID 50 is best implemented on two RAID 5 disk arrays with |
| data striped across both disk arrays. RAID 50 breaks up data into smaller blocks, and then stripes |
| the blocks of data to each RAID 5 raid set. RAID 5 breaks up data into smaller blocks, calculates |
| parity by performing an |
| each drive in the array. The size of each block is determined by the stripe size parameter, which is |
| set during the creation of the RAID set. |
| RAID 50 can sustain one drive failure per RAID 5 array and still maintain data integrity. For |
| example, the RAID 50 configuration in the graphic below has two RAID 5 arrays. It can survive |
| two drive failures, as long as the failed drives are in different RAID 5 arrays. |
Uses | RAID 50 works best when used with data that requires high |
| reliability, high request rates, and high data transfer and |
| medium to large capacity. |
Strong Points | RAID 50 provides high data throughput, data redundancy, |
| and very good performance. |
Weak Points | Requires 2 to 4 times as many parity drives as RAID 5. |
Drives | Six to 32 |
24MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 Hardware Guide