Disk Arrays
In today’s day and age, businesses take care of their data as their own treasure. The information oils the business machine to operate. However, there are some cases of disk failures or computer crashes, which may lead to data loss or files being corrupted. It is a big blow for the company which worked to keep the information and data. This scenario may be possible in the near future, and here at PC Mall we recommend to invest on drive array systems also known as Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID).
A Disk array or RAID is a storage device technology that enables the storage of data (to what?) redundantly onto different disks which improves performance and data reliability through error tolerance. Through disk array, if the data has been “mirrored” or duplicated into another disk, it would serve as a backup in case one of the drives failed. Although the data has duplicated on different disk(s), the operating system still reads all of it as one. RAID has also several levels in which it has different functionalities and serves different purposes.
The common RAID formats are:
RAID 0 – This level of disk array provides additional storage yet vulnerable to data loss. If one of the disks failed, all disks within the array will also fail since it has zero redundancy and lacks error tolerance. RAID 1 – This particular level enables disk mirroring or duplicating data for different disks. RAID 2 – Synchronized disk rotation which makes high data transfer possible. RAID 3 – Almost as same as RAID 2, yet multiple requests may not be possible. RAID 4 – This disk array setup is one of the most common. It duplicates data however it has a dedicated disk for it. The down side of it is that due to a dedicated disk, it may create write bottlenecks which may reduce the performance of the disk. RAID 5 – The most popular among all RAID setups. It is almost the same as RAID 4 except that the parity data or duplicated data is distributed to all disks, therefore improving not only the performance, but also reducing the risk of losing data within the disk array. RAID 6 – Same as with RAID 5, although doubling the allocation for duplicate data. Like the old maxim, “prevention is better than cure.” That is why PC Mall recommends for businesses to invest in disk or drive arrays, so that you may have peace of mind in securing your data from disk failures. Reliable brands such as HP, Buffalo Technology, Overland Storage, IBM, LaCie and more, all in great and affordable prices that suit your budget.
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