Picking the correct RAID mode is important, especially as data carries a large value. Whether you need speed or redundancy, or both, you must pick the right RAID mode for your environment. There are other factors at play, such as read and write speeds, which we will discuss in the advantages and disadvantages below.

With the number of drives available now and the amount of drive types, it’s hard to say which disk setup is optimal for you. Our RAID calculator is a great way to determine the size and amount of disks. Here we’ll talk through some of the pros and cons of some of the RAID modes.

There are many drive types and many RAID modes available on the market today. There are pros and cons to every RAID mode and there are also benefits to onboard RAID as well as a hardware RAID card. On our RAID calculator page we list out the pros and cons to each mode, which are also listed below:

Making the right RAID card choice can often depend on your server configuration and drive type(s) as well as OS support for your particular RAID card(s). 

HighPoint, a manufacturer of leading RAID controllers, has announced a new RAID card with extreme performance for a single RAID array. HighPoint 8-Port High-Port-Count (HPC) M.2 controllers deliver unbeatable performance and storage capacity in a compact PCIe device that can be easily integrated into any industry standard computing platform.

There are lots of RAID calculators out there but some intuitive guidance is important when picking the right RAID mode for yourself. This can also depend on whether you are using hardware RAID or software RAID. 

Whether you’re looking to improve your disk I/O performance or provide yourself with disk redundancy, RAID cards are an easy way to make this work. Hardware RAID and software RAID are both options and depending on your use case, one may be better than the other.