RAID is configuration of two or multiple hard drives to work as a single unit on a single computer system. Although, the configuration may vary, as per the intended use, but the main concept of it is to provide high- availability installation, which has to isolate the whole data storage from situations like system failures or infrastructure failures. In the world of Information Technology, the term "high-availability" is obtained by achieving redundancy. This can be done, by deploying RAID arrays into the data center, which reduce the likelihood of system failures, occurring due to hard drive failures.

This prevents the properly configured disk arrays from failing and so, its general operations will also be unaffected making users of data center, never experience downtime. In this article, below mentioned technological terms will be repeated occasionally and so to simplify things to the reader, the terms have been explained in brief.

Redundancy - Redundancy refers to having numerous components which offer the same function, so that the system functioning can continue in the event of partial system failure.

Fault Tolerance - fault tolerance means, in the event of a component failure, the system is designed in such a way that a backup component will be available, in order to prevent loss of service.

Types of RAID

RAID technology deployment is possible by using a software as well as hardware.

Software Raid vs. Hardware Raid Software RAID - Most of the popular operating systems are coming up with software raid support and so, the cost of deployment decreases a bit. However, software raid works on partition level and so it increases complexity if the number of partitions is increased and at this stage hardware raid comes into affect. In case of power failure, software raid fails completely, while in hardware raid, the battery back up continues with the pending writes. The software raid offers high performance levels in Raid 0 and Raid 1 levels. But as the levels increase and in nested raid levels, the performance decreases as it is dependent on CPU performance and current load.

Hot swapping of disks is supported in software raid, which means replacing of failed hard disk with a new one. Software RAID offers hot spare support, where spare hard drives are installed in raid arrangement, which stay inactive until an active drive fails and then automatically takes on the working of the fault disk to reduce downtime. Software Raid usage is seen in no vendor lock-ins, single server workstations, in low cost solutions and is better for RAID 0 and RAID 1 levels and is ideal for home and small businesses.

Hardware RAID - The cost factor is a bit high, if an enterprise deploys hardware raid in its data center. But the factors such as complexity in management are low and the back up caching is also available in this raid through battery backup. The performance of hardware RAID is excellent and it supports disk hot swapping and hot spare support. Hardware Raid supports higher write throughputs and offers faster reconstruction of data loss. Ideal for all mission critical and performance oriented solutions.

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