Choosing A Raid Level - Promise Technology VTrack M-Class M200f Product Manual

Choosing a RAID Level

There are several issues to consider when choosing the RAID Level for your
VTrak disk array. The following discussion summarizes some advantages,
disadvantages, and applications for each choice.
RAID 0
Implements a striped disk array, the
data is broken down into blocks and
each block is written to a separate disk
drive
I/O performance is greatly improved by
spreading the I/O load across many
channels and drives
No parity calculation overhead is
involved
Recommended Applications for RAID 0
• Image Editing
• Pre-Press Applications
• Any application requiring high bandwidth
RAID 1
Simplest RAID storage subsystem
design
Can increase read performance by
processing data requests in parallel
since the same data resides on two
different drives
Recommended Applications for RAID 1
• Accounting
• Payroll
• Financial
• Any application requiring very high availability
Advantages
Advantages
Chapter 7: Technology Background
Disadvantages
Not a true RAID because it is not fault-
tolerant
The failure of just one drive will result in
all data in an disk array being lost
Should not be used in mission critical
environments
Disadvantages
Very high disk overhead - uses only
50% of total capacity
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