What is RAID?
RAID Disks Data is the most valuable asset of any business today. Lost data means lost business. Even if you backup regularly, you need a fail-safe way to ensure that your data is protected and can be accessed without interruption in the event of an online disk failure. Adding RAID to your storage configurations is one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain both data protection and access. While a number of companies offer RAID, not all RAID implementations are created equal. With over 24 years of SCSI development experience, only Thinkmate offers the most robust RAID data protection available today, based on a hardened RAID code proven over years of use in demanding environments and resold by most of the top-tier computer manufacturers. To choose the RAID level that’s right for you, begin by considering the factors below.
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. RAID, basically, is a form of data management for more than one physical disk. That is, how your data is stored and where your data is stored. Very simply put, RAIDs will allow you to treat multiple hard drives as a single volume on your computer. How it treats them depends on the “RAID level” – You’ll have to pick the RAID level that makes the most sense for your needs.
A general RAID concept of was first defined by David A. Patterson, Garth Gibson and Randy H. Katz of the University of California, Berkeley in 1987. Read their original paper – A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID). Described in that paper, “a disk array combines the capabilities of a number of small, inexpensive disk drives to exceed the performance of a single, large, expensive disk drive”. In addition, since RAIDs use a number of small drives, features can be added to protect against the loss of data when a single drive fails. This redundancy is why Raids have become so popular in high-availability applications. RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent (or inexpensive) Disks. There are six levels of RAID: level 0 – level 5. Each level supports a different storage layout scheme on the disk drives, from mirroring to parity striping.
RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a method for storing data on multiple hard disks, then linking the disks so that the operating system on your server views them as a single entity. At WestHost, we offer RAID for both SATA and SCSI hard drives in 3 different configurations with our Dedicated Servers: RAID-0: This type of RAID uses a method of data storage known as striping. The technology divides the data into pieces, and places each piece on a different drive. For instance, data piece A may be stored on Drive 1, while data piece B goes to Drive 2, C heads to Drive 3, and so on. Because the data is divided, RAID-0 offers the top level of performance for disk IO. It is usually used for multimedia applications like video editing and for situations where data loss is not as much a concern as speed. RAID-1: This type of RAID uses a method of data storage known as mirroring. This refers to the fact that every piece of data is written to at least two disks. As a result, RAID-
