Raid level usage – Dell PowerVault MD3200i User Manual

Page 41

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Planning: MD3200i Series Storage Array Terms and Concepts

41

Each RAID level provides different performance and protection. You must

select a RAID level based on the type of application, access, fault tolerance,

and data you are storing.
The storage array supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10. The maximum

number of physical disks that can be used in a disk group depends on the

RAID level:

• 192 for RAID levels 0, 1, and 10
• 30 for RAID levels 5 and 6.

RAID Level Usage

To ensure best performance, you must select an optimal RAID level when you

create a system physical disk. The optimal RAID level for your disk array

depends on:

• Number of physical disks in the disk array
• Capacity of the physical disks in the disk array
• Need for redundant access to the data (fault tolerance)
• Disk performance requirements

RAID 0

RAID 0 uses disk striping to provide high data throughput, especially for large

files in an environment that requires no data redundancy. RAID 0 breaks the

data down into segments and writes each segment to a separate physical disk.

I/O performance is greatly improved by spreading the I/O load across many

physical disks. Although it offers the best performance of any RAID level,

RAID 0 lacks data redundancy. Select this option only for non-critical data,

because failure of one physical disk results in the loss of all data. Examples of

RAID 0 applications include video editing, image editing, prepress

applications, or any application requiring high bandwidth.

RAID 1

RAID 1 uses disk mirroring so that data written to one physical disk is

simultaneously written to another physical disk. This RAID level offers fast

performance, the best data availability, and the highest disk overhead. RAID 1

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