Raid 50 - LSI MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 Hardware Manual

RAID 50

RAID 50 provides the features of both RAID 0 and RAID 5. RAID 50 includes both parity and
disk striping across multiple drives. RAID 50 is best implemented on two RAID 5 disk arrays with
data striped across both disk arrays. RAID 50 breaks up data into smaller blocks, and then stripes
the blocks of data to each RAID 5 raid set. RAID 5 breaks up data into smaller blocks, calculates
parity by performing an exclusive-or on the blocks, and then writes the blocks of data and parity to
each drive in the array. The size of each block is determined by the stripe size parameter, which is
set during the creation of the RAID set.
RAID 50 can sustain one drive failure per RAID 5 array and still maintain data integrity. For
example, the RAID 50 configuration in the graphic below has two RAID 5 arrays. It can survive
two drive failures, as long as the failed drives are in different RAID 5 arrays.
RAID 50 works best when used with data that requires high
Uses
reliability, high request rates, and high data transfer and
medium to large capacity
RAID 50 provides high data throughput, data redundancy,
Strong Points
and very good performance.
Requires 2 to 4 times as many parity drives as RAID 5.
Weak Points
Six to 32
Drives
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