Cost: you won’t have to buy any dedicated hardware if you’re opting for a software-based solution, and there are different free software online that you can use.On the other hand, if you want the maximum benefit out of a RAID 5 or 6 configurations, you need to have a dedicated RAID controller.Īside from this, there are other things to note as well. Software RAID can manage lower-end RAID configurations, like RAID 0 or 1. Hardware RAID is suited for some types of RAID configurations, whereas RAID software is better for other configurations. However, this also requires you to sacrifice half your storage space, since you’ll be mirroring your drives. This increases read and write speeds, and any lost data can be regenerated quickly. It spreads the data evenly across two drives, and mirrors it on the other two. RAID 10 requires at least four drives to operate and offers the combined benefit of the different types of RAID configurations. In the event of a drive failure, parity information will be used to regenerate the lost data, but this will place stress on the system. Using RAID 5 or 6 for database servers or any heavy writing scenarios is not the best idea. These are usually best for web and file servers or any system which is more based on reads. RAID 5 & 6 are heavily dependent on the hardware used, and you will need a hardware controller to get the full benefit. It spreads the data evenly across the drives and adds parity information across the disks as well. RAID 5 also requires three drives to operate. This results in higher speeds for reading and writing. It evenly splits data between two disks, and dedicates the third for parity storage. Two 1 TB drives will only show 1 TB as usable, and so on. The downside to this method is that you can only utilize half the storage, since you’ll be making a copy of all your data. This method improves the data reading speed, since the system can read different portions of the data from different drives simultaneously. This is great if one of your drives fails, since you’ll have the complete data in another drive. This configuration is referred to as Mirroring and makes copies of your data across all the connected disks. The downside of this configuration is that even if a single drive fails, all the data on the other connected drives will become unreadable as well. It spreads the data evenly across the disks and treats all those disks as one single disk. This configuration is also referred to as Striping and is only used to increase hard disk performance, not provide redundancy. Types of RAID Configurationsĭifferent RAID configurations handle data storage in different ways, and we’ll go over each of them. However, there are some shortcomings with software RAID that are overcome with hardware RAID.īefore we decide which one is better, you should know some more things. This option is also cheaper since you won’t have to get a dedicated RAID controller. But it will place a load on your processing power, because of the absence of a dedicated RAID controller. This software can be configured through your OS or the BIOS, depending on the type of software you use. Software RAID involves using the operating system to configure and control the disks connected to the system and requires a RAID driver or software. Card-based controllers are usually for high-end systems and are more difficult to install. Card-Based Controllersīus-based controllers are usually better for lower RAID levels, whereas card-based controllers have their dedicated processors. Another option would be a RAID chip, which can be installed directly onto the motherboard. You can get a RAID controller card to attach to your motherboard. This separate controller will merge all your disks into one and take the load off your primary system’s operating power. The RAID controller handles all the configuration and tasks that your operating system usually handles. Hardware RAID involves getting a separate RAID controller, in which you can connect all the HDDs and SSDs you require. We will also talk about the different RAID configurations and their uses. This article will talk about the different ways you can utilize RAID, and the pros and cons of each one. In the case of data corruption, RAID lets the system utilize backups to avoid any service break. This is done to improve the system’s ability to host its services and increase user capacity. RAID essentially consists of turning several disks, either through hardware or software, into one singular storage system. RAID, also referred to as Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a storage method used in cloud computing.
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