In: Computer Science
Describe RAID - What it stands for, what it protects against, and what are common implementations.
The RAID stands for Redundant array of independent disks.It is a method of preserving similar data in discrete locations over several hard disks for protecting the data when a drive flops.it is employed to attain the huge data quickly.RAID storage employs the several disks for increasing the total perfomance and fault tolerance(capacity to remain the single or multiple disk failures).
RAID is implemented through the software(where the operating system driver is employed) or hardware(a unique hardware is employed).There are some unique storage methods to preserve data such as mirroring(a method where the similar replica of data is preserved over RAID members at a time.it impacts the fault tolerance and perfomance also) ,striping(dividing the data flow into blocks with particular size over a RAID sucessively.this manner of data preservation might impacts the perfomance) and parity.
Depending on the storage methods there are RAID levels such as RAID 0, RAID 1,RAID 0+1,RAID 1E,RAID 5,RAID 5E,RAID 5E having delayed parity,RAID6.