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News & EventsWhich RAID mode is best for my server?
Which RAID mode is best for my server?
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Which RAID mode is best for my server?

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.

September 15, 2022
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.

RAID 0:
ADVANTAGES:
  • High performance
  • Easy to implement
  • Highly efficient (no parity overhead)
DISADVANTAGES:
  • No redundancy
  • Limited business use cases due to no fault tolerance
RAID 1: 
ADVANTAGES:
  • Fault-tolerant
  • Easy to recover data in case of drive failure
  • Easy to implement
DISADVANTAGES:
  • Highly inefficient (100% parity overhead)
  • Not scalable (becomes very costly as the number of disks increases)
RAID 5:
ADVANTAGES:
  • Fault-tolerant
  • High efficiency
DISADVANTAGES:
  • Disk failure has a medium impact on throughput
  • Complex controller design
RAID 6:
ADVANTAGES:
  • Fault-tolerant with increased redundancy.
  • High efficiency
  • Remains a great option in multi-user environments that are not write-performance sensitive
DISADVANTAGES:
  • Write performance penalty vs 5
  • More expensive than 5
  • Disk failure has a medium impact on throughput
  • Complex controller design
RAID 1+0:
ADVANTAGES:
  • Fault tolerance
  • High Performance
DISADVANTAGES:
  • Expensive
  • High Overhead
  • Very limited scalability
RAID 5+0:
ADVANTAGES:
  • Higher fault tolerance, better performance, and higher efficiency than RAID 5
DISADVANTAGES:
  • Very Expensive
  • Limited Scalability
RAID 6+0:
ADVANTAGES:
  • Higher fault tolerance than RAID 6
  • Higher performance than RAID 6
  • Higher efficiency than RAID 6
DISADVANTAGES:
  • Very Expensive
  • Very complex/difficult to implement
To find out more about pros & cons of your RAID setup, talk to us.  Enquire today by using the form below, and one of our expert team will be in touch.
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