What Is RAID Array and Explain RAID 0, 1 with Figures

RAID means Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a storage technology of storing the same data on the multiple hard disks. RAID technology has many standard levels: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 6.

The most common to see levels are RAID 0 and RAID 1 for normal computer users, and setting up the RAID 0 and 1 functionality requires 2 hard disks only, therefore I will shows you how to set up software RAID 0 and RAID 1 in Windows 7 and 8. Before you set up the RAID array on your computer, you have to know which RAID level is to suit your needs.

What is RAID

What is RAID 0

Simply explain the key points of RAID Level 0 below:

• The minimum requirement of RAID 0 is 2 disks.
• The main benefit of using RAID 0 is increased read and write performance.
• Data blocks are striped and each "stripe" of data is stored on only one disk.
• RAID 0 provides no redundancy of data.
• While one of the hard disks fails, the failure affects to entire RAID 0 system, so it is not highly recommended to use this for any critical system.
• More hard disks added to RAID 0 array, performance improved but less reliable it is.
• RAID 0 creates a large logical disk out of two or more hard disk drives, the storage space of the array is limited to the storage space of the smallest drive, for example, if you put a 80 GB hard disk and a 100 GB hard disk together into a RAID 0 array, the total storage space of the RAID 0 will be 160 GB. (80 GB x 2)

What is RAID 1

Simply explain the key points of RAID Level 1 below:

• The minimum requirement of RAID 1 is 2 disks.
• The main benefit of using RAID 0 is increased reliability and read performance.
• Data blocks are mirrored and each data is stored on each disk of RAID 1 array.
• RAID 0 provides no redundancy of data.
• While one of the hard disks fails, the failure affects to entire RAID 0 system, so it is not highly recommended to use this for any critical system.
• More hard disks added to RAID 0 array, performance improved but less reliable it is.
• RAID 0 creates a large logical disk out of two or more hard disk drives, the storage space of the array is limited to the storage space of the smallest drive, for example, if you put a 80 GB hard disk and a 100 GB hard disk into a RAID 0 array, the total storage space of the RAID 0 will be 160 GB. (80 GB x 2)

How do you think

Which RAID level is better for you? If you think the data reliability is more important than storage space, you sould choose to use RAID 1.

If you usually use a video editing software to edit your videos, you may consider choosing to use RAID 0, because it has better performance and larger storage space to store the video files.

Now you may understand what is RAID array. Setting up the RAID on your PC is also not difficult even for a computer beginner, the step by step tutorial is coming in next days.