Networking —

RAID 5

RAID 5, also known as disk striping with parity, uses distributed parity to write information across all disks in the array. Unlike the striping used in RAID 0, RAID 5 includes parity information in the striping, which provides fault tolerance. This parity information is used to re-create the data in the event of a failure. RAID 5 requires a minimum of three disks with the equivalent of a single disk being used for the parity information. This means that if you have three 40GB hard disks, you have 80GB of storage space with the other 40GB used for parity. To increase storage space in a RAID 5 array, you need only add another disk to the array. Depending on the sophistication of the RAID setup you are using, the RAID controller will be able to incorporate the new drive into the array automatically, or you will need to rebuild the array and restore the data from backup.

Many factors have made RAID 5 a very popular fault-tolerant design. RAID 5 can continue to function in the event of a single drive failure. If a hard disk were to fail in the array, the parity would re-create the missing data and continue to function with the remaining drives. The read performance of RAID 5 is improved over a single disk.

There are only a few drawbacks for the RAID 5 solution. These are as follows:

  • The costs of implementing RAID 5 are initially higher than other fault-tolerant measures requiring a minimum of three hard disks. Given the costs of hard disks today, this is a minor concern.

  • RAID 5 suffers from poor write performance because the parity has to be calculated and then written across several disks. The performance lag is minimal and won't have a noticeable difference on the network.

  • When a new disk is placed in a failed RAID 5 array, there is a regeneration time when the data is being rebuilt on the new drive. This process requires extensive resources from the server.

Figure 4 shows an example of RAID 5 striping with parity.

Figure 9.4. RAID 5 striping with parity.