Topic: Raid Levels - 0,1,2,3,4,5,6

Topic: RAID
Levels – 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
RAID
Redundant Arrays Of
Independent Disks
Content:
 What is RAID?
 History behind RAID
 Taxonomy of RAID levels
 RAID : Level 0 to Level 6

 What that level means & does?
 Working with help of diagram
 Characteristics & Advantages
 Disadvantages
 Recommended Applications
 Benefits of using RAID Level
 References
What is RAID?
 It is multiple-disk database design.
 It is a category of disk drives (two or more) in combination for fault

tolerance and performance.
 It has seven levels – zero to six
 RAID disk drives are used frequently on servers but aren't generally
necessary for personal computers.
 RAID allows you to store the same data redundantly (in multiple
paces) in a balanced way to improve overall storage performance.
History of RAID:
 In 1987, Patterson, Gibson and Katz at the University of

California at Berkeley, published a paper entitled
“A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks
(RAID)”
 I/O becoming a performance bottleneck

Different RAID Levels:
 Different levels which provides a different balance between

performance, capacity and tolerance.
 Following are they:

LEVEL 6 Independent Data Disks with Double
Parity
LEVEL 5 Block Interleaved Distributed Parity
LEVEL 4 Dedicated Parity Drive
LEVEL 3 Bit-Interleaved Parity
LEVEL 2 Error-Correcting Coding
LEVEL 1 Mirroring and Duplexing
Striped Disk Array without Fault

LEVEL 0
Tolerance
LEVEL 0: Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance-
 Minimum nos. of drives required : 2
 Striping is the segmentation of logically sequential data, such as

a single file, so that segments can be assigned to multiple physical
devices
 The first byte of the file is sent to the first drive, then the second
to second drive and so on.
 Stripes data across multiple disks without any redundant

information.
 Striping reduces the level of data availability since a disk failure

will cause the entire array to be inaccessible.
Diagram:
http://www.acnc.com/raidedu/0
Characteristics & Advantages:
 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.
 Best performance is achieved when data is striped across

multiple controllers with only one drive per controller.
 No parity calculation overhead is involved
 Very simple design
 Easy to implement
Disadvantages:
 Not a "True" RAID because it is NOT fault-tolerant
 The failure of just one drive will result in all data in an array
being lost
 Should never be used in mission critical environments

Recommended Applications:
 Video Production and Editing
 Image Editing
 Pre-Press Applications
Any application requiring high bandwidth

LEVEL 1: Mirroring and Duplexing -
 RAID-1 provides data redundancy.
 Data written to one disk drive is simultaneously written to

another disk drive, called the mirroring.
 RAID-1 provides high data availability
 In addition, read performance may be enhanced if the array

controller allows simultaneous reads from both members of a
mirrored pair.
 Higher availability will be achieved if both disks in a
mirror pair are on separate I/O busses, known as
duplexing.
Diagram:
 One Write or two Reads possible per mirrored pair
 Twice the Read transaction rate of single disks, same Write

transaction rate as single disks.
100% redundancy of data means no rebuild is necessary in case

of a disk failure, just a copy to the replacement disk
 Transfer rate per block is equal to that of a single disk
 Under certain circumstances, RAID 1 can sustain multiple

simultaneous drive failures
 Simplest RAID storage subsystem design

Disadvantages:
 Highest disk overhead of all RAID types (100%) – inefficient
 Typically the RAID function is done by system software, loading

the CPU/Server and possibly degrading throughput at high activity
levels. Hardware implementation is strongly recommended
 May not support hot swap of failed disk when implemented in

"software"
 Accounting
 Payroll
 Financial
 Any application requiring very high availability

LEVEL 2: Error-Correcting Coding -
 It is a theoretical entity.
 It stripes data at bit level across an array of disks, then writes

check bytes to other disks in the array.
 The check bytes are calculated using a Hamming code.
 Theoretical performance is very high, but it would be so

expensive to implement that no-one uses it.
 On the fly" data error correction
 Extremely high data transfer rates possible
 The higher the data transfer rate required, the better the ratio of
data disks to ECC disks
 Relatively simple controller design compared to RAID levels

3,4 & 5
Disadvantages:
 Very high ratio of ECC disks to data disks with smaller

word sizes – inefficient
Entry level cost vey high - requires very high transfer rate
requirement to justify
Transaction rate is equal to that of a single disk at best

(with spindle synchronization)
No commercial implementations exist / not commercially viable

LEVEL 3: Bit-Interleaved Parity -
 A block of data is striped over an array of disks, then parity

data is written to a dedicated parity disk.
Successful implementations usually require that all the disks

have synchronized rotation.
RAID3 is very effective for large sequential data, such as

satellite imagery and video.
Diagram:
 Very high Read data transfer rate
 Very high Write data transfer rate
 Disk failure has an insignificant impact on throughput
 Low ratio of ECC (Parity) disks to data disks means high efficiency
Disadvantages:
 Transaction rate equal to that of a single disk drive at best

(if spindles are synchronized)
 Controller design is fairly complex
 Very difficult and resource intensive to do as a "software" RAID

 Video Production and live streaming
 Image Editing
 Video Editing
 Prepress Applications
 Any application requiring high throughput

LEVEL 4: Dedicated Parity Drive -
 Level 4 provides block-level striping (like Level 0) with a parity

disk.
 If a data disk fails, the parity data is used to create a replacement

disk.
Diagram:
 Very high Read data transaction rate
 High aggregate Read transfer rate

Disadvantages:
 Quite complex controller design
 Worst Write transaction rate and Write aggregate transfer rate
 Difficult and inefficient data rebuild in the event of disk failure
 Block Read transfer rate equal to that of a single disk

 Video Production and Editing
 Image Editing
 Pre-Press Applications
Any application requiring high bandwidth

LEVEL 5: Block Interleaved Distributed Parity -
 It distributes parity along with the data and requires that all drives
but one be present to operate. The array is not destroyed by a single
drive failure.
 On drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the

distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end
user.
Example:
 Start with four drives
 Create an array using three of the physical drives, leaving the fourth as
a hot-spare drive.
 Then create a logical drive within that array.

 The data is striped across the drives, creating blocks.
 Notice that the storage of the data parity (denoted by *) also is striped,
and it shifts from drive to drive.
 A parity block ( *) contains a representation of the data from the other

blocks in the same stripe. For example, the parity block in the first
stripe contains data representation of blocks 1 and 2.
 If a physical drive fails in the array, the data from the failed physical
drive is reconstructed onto the hot-spare drive.
 Highest Read data transaction rate
 Medium Write data transaction rate
 Good aggregate transfer rate

Disadvantages:
 Disk failure has a medium impact on throughput
 Most complex controller design
 Difficult to rebuild in the event of a disk failure

(as compared to RAID level 1)
 Individual block data transfer rate same as single disk

 File and Application servers
 Database servers
 Web, E-mail, and News servers
 Intranet servers
 Most versatile RAID level

LEVEL 6: Independent Data Disks with Double Parity -
RAID 6 provides fault tolerance up to two failed drives.
This makes larger RAID groups more practical, especially for high-
availability systems. This becomes increasingly important as large-
capacity drives lengthen the time needed to recover from the failure of
a single drive.
Example:
 Start with six physical drives.
 Create a logical drive using four physical drives, leaving two for hot
spare drives.
 The data is striped across the drives, creating blocks in the logical drive.
The storage of the data parity (denoted by * and **) is striped, and it
shifts from drive to drive as it does in RAID level-5.
 If a physical drive fails in the array, the logical drive is degraded but
remains fault tolerant.
 If a second physical drive fails in the array, the data from the failed
drives are reconstructed onto the hot-spare drives, and the data for the
logical drive return to the original striping scheme.
 RAID 6 is essentially an extension of RAID level 5 which allows for

additional fault tolerance by using a second independent distributed parity
scheme (dual parity)
Data is striped on a block level across a set of drives, just like in RAID 5,
and a second set of parity is calculated and written across all the drives;
RAID 6 provides for an extremely high data fault tolerance and can sustain
multiple simultaneous drive failures.
 RAID 6 protects against multiple bad block failures while non-degraded
 RAID 6 protects against a single bad block failure while operating in a

degraded mode Perfect solution for mission critical applications
Disadvantages:
 More complex controller design
 Controller overhead to compute parity addresses is extremely high
 Write performance can be brought on par with RAID Level 5 by using a

custom ASIC for computing Reed-Solomon parity
 Requires N+2 drives to implement because of dual parity scheme

 File and Application servers
 Database servers
 Web, E-mail, and News servers
 Intranet servers
 Excellent fault-tolerance with the lowest overhead

Table: RAID Levels
Benefits of RAID:
Data loss can be very dangerous for an organization
RAID technology prevents data loss due to disk failure
RAID technology can be implemented in hardware or software
Servers make use of RAID technology

Conclusion:
 RAID offers a cost effective alternative to SLED through the use of

 data striping
 mirroring
 parity
 Different RAID “levels” can be chosen to suit different functions

for the computer.
Reference:
 http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html
 http://www.acnc.com/raid
 http://www.lascon.co.uk/hwd-raid.php

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Topic: RAID

 History behind RAID

 Taxonomy of RAID levels

 RAID : Level 0 to Level 6

 Benefits of using RAID Level

 It is multiple-disk database design.

 It is a category of disk drives (two or more) in combination for fault

 It has seven levels – zero to six

 In 1987, Patterson, Gibson and Katz at the University of

 I/O becoming a performance bottleneck

 Different levels which provides a different balance between

 Following are they:

LEVEL 5 Block Interleaved Distributed Parity

LEVEL 4 Dedicated Parity Drive

LEVEL 3 Bit-Interleaved Parity

LEVEL 2 Error-Correcting Coding

LEVEL 1 Mirroring and Duplexing

Striped Disk Array without Fault

 Minimum nos. of drives required : 2

 Striping is the segmentation of logically sequential data, such as

 Stripes data across multiple disks without any redundant

 Striping reduces the level of data availability since a disk failure

 RAID 0 implements a striped disk array, the data is broken

 I/O performance is greatly improved by spreading the I/O load

 Best performance is achieved when data is striped across

 No parity calculation overhead is involved

 Very simple design

 Not a "True" RAID because it is NOT fault-tolerant

 Should never be used in mission critical environments

 Video Production and Editing

Any application requiring high bandwidth

 Minimum nos. of drives required : 2

 RAID-1 provides data redundancy.

 Data written to one disk drive is simultaneously written to

 RAID-1 provides high data availability

 In addition, read performance may be enhanced if the array

 One Write or two Reads possible per mirrored pair

 Twice the Read transaction rate of single disks, same Write

100% redundancy of data means no rebuild is necessary in case

 Transfer rate per block is equal to that of a single disk

 Under certain circumstances, RAID 1 can sustain multiple

 Simplest RAID storage subsystem design

 Highest disk overhead of all RAID types (100%) – inefficient

 Typically the RAID function is done by system software, loading

 May not support hot swap of failed disk when implemented in

 Any application requiring very high availability

 It stripes data at bit level across an array of disks, then writes

 The check bytes are calculated using a Hamming code.

 Theoretical performance is very high, but it would be so

 On the fly" data error correction

 Extremely high data transfer rates possible

 Relatively simple controller design compared to RAID levels

 Very high ratio of ECC disks to data disks with smaller

Transaction rate is equal to that of a single disk at best

No commercial implementations exist / not commercially viable

 Minimum nos. of drives required : 3

 A block of data is striped over an array of disks, then parity