
B-RAID  Level Comparison Table
Appendix B: RAID Level Comparison Table
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| RAID | Description | 
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 | M i n . | Max. | Capacity | Fault Tolerance | 
 | Data | 
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 | I/O | ||
| Level | 
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 | Drives | Drives | 
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 | Transfer Rate | 
 | Request Rates | |
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| 0 | Also known as striping | 1 | 5 | ( N ) | No fault tolerance | Very High | 
 | Very High for | ||||||
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 | Data | distributed | across multiple | 
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 | Both Reads and Writes | |
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 | drives in the array. There is no data | 
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| 1 | Also known as mirroring. | 2 | 5 | 1 Disk | Greater | than | RAID | Reads are higher | 
 | Reads are twice faster | ||||
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 | All data replicated on 2 Separate | 
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 | 3,5 | 
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 | Than a single disk; | than a single disk; | |||||
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 | disks. This is a high availability | 
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 | Writes | similar | to a | Write are similar to a | |||
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 | single disk | 
 | single disk. | ||
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| 10 | Also | known as  | 4 | 5 | ( N / 2 ) | Greater | than | RAID | Transfer | rates | more | Reads are twice faster | ||
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 | Parity. Data and parity information | 
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 | Disks | 3,5 | 
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 | similar to RAID 1 than | than a single disk; | |||||
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 | is subdivided and distributed across | 
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 | RAID 0 | 
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 | all disks. Parity must be equal to the | 
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 | Writes are similar to a | |||
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 | smallest disk capacity in the array. | 
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 | single disk. | |||
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 | Parity | information | normally stored | 
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 | on a dedicated parity disk. | 
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| 3 | Also | known as  | 3 | 5 | ( N - 1 ) | Lower than RAID 1, | Reads are similar to | Reads are approximately | ||||||
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 | Parity. Data and parity information | 
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 | Disks | 10 | 
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 | RAID 0; | 
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 | twice as fast as a single | |||
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 | is subdivided and distributed across | 
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 | greater than a single | 
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 | all disks. Parity must be equal to the | 
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 | drive | 
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 | Writes are slower than | 
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 | smallest disk capacity in the array. | 
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 | a single disk | 
 | Writes are similar to a | ||||
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 | Parity | information | normally stored | 
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 | single disk. | |
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 | on a dedicated parity disk. | 
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| 5 | Also | known | 3 | 5 | ( N - 1 ) | Lower than RAID 1, | Reads are similar to | Reads are similar to | ||||||
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 | Distributed Parity. | 
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 | Disks | 10 | 
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 | RAID 0; | 
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 | Data and parity information is | 
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 | greater than a single | 
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 | subdivided and | distributed across | 
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 | drive | 
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 | Writes are slower than | Writes are slower than a | ||||
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 | all disks. Parity must be equal to the | 
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 | a single disk | 
 | single disk. | ||||
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 | smallest disk capacity in the array. | 
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 | Parity | information | is distributed | 
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 | across member disks. | 
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| RAIDBank5 Owner’s Manual | 38 | 
