Can RAID Systems Fail ?
Technology, how we love it until something goes wrong and we end upyelling at our computer screens. If you’ve ever lost data, you know howmuch time, money, and headaches it can cost you to retrieve it,especially if you are a company. Data recovery doesn’t have to beworrisome. The acronym RAID, first used in 1988, stands for Redundant Array ofInexpensive (or Independent) Disks. RAID is an assembly of disk drives,also known as ‘disk array’, which operates as one storage unit. Ingeneral, the drives could be any storage system with random data accesssuch as magnetic hard drives, optical storage, magnetic tapes, etc.RAID has several functions which include providing a way of accessingmultiple disks grouped together to appear as a single device, spreadingdata access out over these disks which reduces the risk of losing dataif one drive should fail, and improving access time. Can RAID fail? RAID undoubtedly offers more data protection than non-RAID disksystems. However, the management of the disks and the data distributionacross them can be complex. Complex redundant systems can sufferfailure, most often not a fault of the technology used or the design ofthe array, but most likely because of its failure to correctly applythese systems which leads to a single point of failure causingdisastrous data loss. No matter how well designed or implemented the RAID system is, there isstill a factor that can cause RAID data array problems, the humanfactor. The more complex the system, the higher the likelihood formistakes to occur. Note the following: Multiple drives can fail in an array. Arrays are normally boxed in a single case, so physical damage canaffect multiple drives and the control electronics. Many people don't back up RAID systems because they're 'fault tolerant'- however they're not 'fault proof'. Think of a RAID system as an insurance policy for your data protectingyou against drive failure. Drive failure entails employee downtime,lost sales, customer costs, lost opportunities, data restoration andre-entry costs, and intangible costs due in part to work daydisruptions not to mention the cost of RAID data recovery. There are several ways to store data using the different RAID levels: RAID 0, also known as data striping, distributes data across driveswhich results in higher data throughout. However, since it has no dataredundancy, it does not protect against data loss. RAID 1, also known as drive mirroring, works by simultaneously copyingdata to a second drive so no data is lost if there is drive failure. RAID 2 uses Hamming error correction codes and is proposed for use withdrives which don’t have built-in error detection. RAID 3 stripes data at a byte level across several drives storingparity (a form of data protection used to recreate the data of a faileddrive in a disk array) on a single drive. RAID 4 stripes data at a block level across several drives, with paritybeing stored on one drive. The parity information allows for recoveryfrom the failure of any single drive. RAID 5 is similar to RAID 4 except for the fact that it distributesparity among the drives. With the use of RAID systems, there is no reason to be intimidated bycomputer systems. About The Author Alexandria Haber writes both fiction and non-fiction for a variety ofpeople and places. As a result, she has had the benefit of gaining alittle bit of knowledge about a lot of different subjects. Whileresearching this article on RAID recovery she gained a new respect forcomputer technology. For more information on RAID recovery you can visit: info@raidrecoveryguide.com Home > Network Articles > Can Raid Systems Fail?
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