OPERATING SYSTEM

RAID Structures

Storage devices have continued to get smaller and cheaper, so it is now economically feasible to attach many drives to a
computer system. Having a large number of drives in a system presents opportunities for improving the rate at which
data can be read or written, if the drives are operated in parallel. Furthermore, this setup offers the potential for
improving the reliability of data storage, because redundant information can be stored on multiple drives. Thus, failure of
one drive does not lead to loss of data. A variety of disk-organization techniques, collectively called Redundant Arrays of
Independent Disks (RAIDs), are commonly used to address the performance and reliability issues.

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a way of storing the same data in different places on multiple hard disks
or solid-state drives to protect data in the case of a drive failure. There are different RAID levels, however, and not all
have the goal of providing redundancy.

How RAID works?

• RAID works by placing data on multiple disks and allowing input/output (I/O) operations to overlap in a balanced
way, improving performance. Because the use of multiple disks increases the Mean Time Between Failures
(MTBF), storing data redundantly also increases fault tolerance.
• RAID arrays appear to the operating system (OS) as a single logical drive. RAID employs the techniques of disk
mirroring or disk striping. Mirroring will copy identical data onto more than one drive. Striping partitions helps
spread data over multiple disk drives. Each drive's storage space is divided into units ranging from a sector (512
bytes) up to several megabytes. The stripes of all the disks are interleaved and addressed in order.
• Disk mirroring and disk striping can also be combined in a RAID array.
• In a single-user system where large records are stored, the stripes are typically set up to be small (perhaps 512
bytes) so that a single record spans all the disks and can be accessed quickly by reading all the disks at the same
time.
• In a multi-user system, better performance requires a stripe wide enough to hold the typical or maximum size
record, allowing overlapped disk I/O across drives.

RAID Controller

• A RAID controller is a device used to manage hard disk drives in a storage array. It can be used as a level of
abstraction between the OS and the physical disks, presenting groups of disks as logical units. Using a RAID
controller can improve performance and help protect data in case of a crash.
• A RAID controller may be hardware- or software-based. In a hardware-based RAID product, a physical controller
manages the array. The controller can also be designed to support drive formats such as SATA and SCSI. A
physical RAID controller can also be built into a server's
• With software-based RAID, the controller uses the resources of the hardware system, such as the central
processor and memory. While it performs the same functions as a hardware-based RAID controller, software-
based RAID controllers may not enable as much of a performance boost and can affect the performance of other
applications on the server.
• If a software-based RAID implementation isn't compatible with a system's boot-up process, and hardware-based
RAID controllers are too costly, firmware or driver-based RAID is another potential option.
• Firmware-based RAID controller chips are located on the motherboard, and all operations are performed by the
CPU, similar to software-based RAID. However, with firmware, the RAID system is only implemented at the
beginning of the boot process. Once the OS has loaded, the controller driver takes over RAID functionality. A
firmware RAID controller isn't as pricy as a hardware option, but it puts more strain on the computer's CPU.
Firmware-based RAID is also called hardware-assisted software RAID, hybrid model RAID and fake RAID.

RAID Levels

Raid devices will make use of different versions, called levels. The original paper that coined the term and developed the
RAID setup concept defined six levels of RAID -- 0 through 5. This numbered system enabled those in IT to differentiate
RAID versions. The number of levels has since expanded and has been broken into three categories: standard, nested and
nonstandard RAID levels.
Standard RAID levels

RAID 0.

This configuration has striping, but no redundancy of data. It offers the best
performance, but it does not provide fault tolerance.

RAID 1. Also known as disk mirroring, this configuration consists of at least two
drives that duplicate the storage of data. There is no striping. Read
performance is improved since either disk can be read at the same time. Write
performance is the same as for single disk storage.

RAID 2. This configuration uses striping across disks, with some disks storing
error checking and correcting (ECC) information. RAID 2 also uses a dedicated
Hamming code parity; a linear form of error correction code. RAID 2 has no
advantage over RAID 3 and is no longer used.

RAID 3. This technique uses striping and dedicates one drive to storing parity
information. The embedded ECC information is used to detect errors. Data
recovery is accomplished by calculating the exclusive information recorded on
the other drives. Since an I/O operation addresses all the drives at the same
time, RAID 3 cannot overlap I/O. For this reason, RAID 3 is best for single-user
systems with long record applications.

RAID 4. This level uses large stripes, which means a user can read records from
any single drive. Overlapped I/O can then be used for read operations. Since all
write operations are required to update the parity drive, no I/O overlapping is
possible.

RAID 5. This level is based on parity block-level striping. The parity information
is striped across each drive, enabling the array to function even if one drive
were to fail. The array's architecture allows read and write operations to span
multiple drives -- resulting in performance better than that of a single drive, but
not as high as that of a RAID 0 array. RAID 5 requires at least three disks, but it
is often recommended to use at least five disks for performance reasons.

RAID 5 arrays are generally considered to be a poor choice for use on write-
intensive systems because of the performance impact associated with writing
parity data. When a disk fails, it can take a long time to rebuild a RAID 5 array.

RAID 6. This technique is similar to RAID 5, but it includes a second parity

scheme distributed across the drives in the array. The use of additional parity
enables the array to continue to function even if two disks fail simultaneously.
However, this extra protection comes at a cost. RAID 6 arrays often have
slower write performance than RAID 5 arrays.

Nested RAID levels

Some RAID levels are referred to as nested RAID because they are based on a combination of RAID levels. Here are some
examples of nested RAID levels.
RAID 10. (RAID1+0). Combining RAID 1 and RAID 0, this level is often referred
to as RAID 10, which offers higher performance than RAID 1, but at a much
higher cost. In RAID 1+0, the data is mirrored and the mirrors are striped.

• RAID 01 (RAID 0+1). RAID 0+1 is similar to RAID 1+0, except the data organization method is slightly different.
Rather than creating a mirror and then striping the mirror, RAID 0+1 creates a stripe set and then mirrors the
stripe set.
• RAID 03 (RAID 0+3, also known as RAID 53 or RAID 5+3). This level uses striping (in RAID 0 style) for RAID 3's
virtual disk blocks. This offers higher performance than RAID 3, but at a higher cost.
• RAID 50 (RAID 5+0). This configuration combines RAID 5 distributed parity with RAID striping to improve RAID 5
performance without reducing data protection.

Nonstandard RAID levels

• Nonstandard RAID levels vary from standard RAID levels and are usually developed by companies or
organizations for mainly proprietary use. Here are some examples.
• RAID 7. A nonstandard RAID level based on RAID 3 and RAID 4 that adds caching. It includes a real-time
embedded OS as a controller, caching via a high- speed bus and other characteristics of a stand-alone computer.
• Adaptive RAID. This level enables the RAID controller to decide how to store the parity on disks. It will choose
between RAID 3 and RAID 5, depending on which RAID set type will perform better with the type of data being
written to the disks.
• Linux MD RAID 10. This level, provided by the Linux kernel, supports the creation of nested and nonstandard
RAID arrays. Linux software RAID can also support the creation of standard RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, RAID 5 and
RAID 6 configurations.

Benefits of RAID

Benefits of RAID include the following.

• An improvement in cost-effectiveness because lower-priced disks are used in large numbers.

• The use of multiple hard drives enables RAID to improve on the performance of a single hard drive.
• Increased computer speed and reliability after a crash -- depending on the configuration.
• Reads and writes can be performed faster than with a single drive with RAID 0. This is because a file system is
split up and distributed across drives that work together on the same file.
• There is increased availability and resiliency with RAID 5. With mirroring, RAID arrays can have two drives
containing the same data, ensuring one will continue to work if the other fails.

Downsides of using RAID

• AID does have it downsides, however. Some of these include:

• Nested RAID levels are more expensive to implement than traditional RAID levels because they require a greater
number of disks.
• The cost per gigabyte of storage devices is higher for nested RAID because many of the drives are used for
redundancy.
• When a drive fails, the probability that another drive in the array will also soon fail rises, which would likely
result in data loss. This is because all the drives in a RAID array are installed at the same time, so all the drives are
subject to the same amount of wear.

Continuation...

• Some RAID levels (such as RAID 1 and 5) can only sustain a single drive failure.
• RAID arrays, and the data in them, are in a vulnerable state until a failed drive is replaced and the new disk is
populated with data.
• Because drives have much greater capacity now than when RAID was first implemented, it takes a lot longer to
rebuild failed drives.
• If a disk failure occurs, there is a chance the remaining disks may contain bad sectors or unreadable data -- which
may make it impossible to fully rebuild the array.
• However, nested RAID levels address these problems by providing a greater degree of redundancy, significantly
decreasing the chances of an array-level failure due to simultaneous disk failures.