RAID(Redundant arrays of independent disks) Levels

RAID LEVEL WAS ALWAYS A VERY TOUGH TASK TO UNDERSTAND.BUT THIS BLOG WILL HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND RAID LEVELS IN A VERY EASY WAY.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Independent) Disks.

On most situations you will be using one of the following four levels of RAIDs.

• RAID 0
• RAID 1
• RAID 5
• RAID 10 (also known as RAID 1+0)

This article explains the main difference between these raid levels along with an easy to understand diagram.

In all the diagrams mentioned below:

• A, B, C, D, E and F – represents blocks
• p1, p2, and p3 – represents parity

RAID LEVEL 0

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 0.

• Minimum 2 disks.
• Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped ).
• No redundancy ( no mirror, no parity ).
• Don’t use this for any critical system.

RAID LEVEL 1

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 1.

• Minimum 2 disks.
• Good performance ( no striping. no parity ).
• Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored ).

RAID LEVEL 5

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 5.

• Minimum 3 disks.
• Good performance ( as blocks are striped ).
• Good redundancy ( distributed parity ).
• Best cost effective option providing both performance and redundancy. Use this for DB that is heavily read oriented. Write operations will be slow.

RAID LEVEL 10

Following are the key points to remember for RAID level 10.

• Minimum 4 disks.
• This is also called as “stripe of mirrors”
• Excellent redundancy ( as blocks are mirrored )
• Excellent performance ( as blocks are striped )
• If you can afford the dollar, this is the BEST option for any mission critical applications (especially databases).

WINDOWS PARTITION

There are several types of partitions that we can create on your hard drive are:

Primary Partition

Partitions are commonly used as a storage operating system. In this there is a primary partition boot partition that stores the files needed to start up the operating system. A hard disk can be partitioned into a maximum of 4 pieces without the extended partition primary partition, or a maximum of 3 pieces of primary partition if there is an extended partition.

Extended Partition

Is a partition boundary between the primary partition and logical partition. In the Extended partition can consist of one or more logical partition. Extended partition is not a drive but only limiting it.

Logical Partition

Logical partition 

Is part of the Extended Partition and used as data storage.

To partition a hard drive we can use several ways, among which:

• Partitioning a hard disk when installing the Operating System.
• Using the Disk Management tool of Windows.