Understanding RAID Levels (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5)

Operating Systems
RAIDRAID ––
Redundant Array ofRedundant Array of
Independent DisksIndependent Disks
Submitted by
Ankur Niyogi
2003EE20367

YOUR DATA IS LOST@#!!
• Do we have backups of all our data????
- The stuff we cannot afford to lose??
• How often do we do backups???
- Daily, Weekly or Monthly??
• Are they magnetic, optical or physical??
• How long would it take to totally recover from the
disaster???

FLOW OF PRESENTATION
• Secondary storage – advantages and limitations
• Increasing Reliability via Redundancy
• RAID
• Mirroring and Data-Striping
• RAID Levels

Secondary Storage Devices
• Significant role in storing large amount of data as
memory is expensive
• Plays a vital role when disk is used as virtual memory
• Magnetic in nature
• Characteristically uses a “moving head disk” mechanism
to read and write data

RAID : Redundant Array of
Inexpensive Disks
Performance limitation of Disks:
- Performance of a single disk is very limited
• Throughput : 125 reqs/s
• Bandwidth : 20-200MB/s (max) 15-30MB/s (sustained)
• Very difficult to significantly improve the performance of disk
drives
- Disks are electromechanical devices
• Speed gap between disks and CPU/Memory is widening
- CPU speed increases @ 60% / year
- Disks speed increase @ 10-15% / year
• Improvement in disk technologies is still very impressive BUT only
in the capacity / cost area.

What does RAID stand for?
In 1987, Patterson, Gibson and Katz at the University of California
Berkeley, published a paper entitled “ A Case for Redundant Array
of Inexpensive Disks(RAID)”.
Described the various types of Disk Arrays, referred to as the
acronym RAID.
The basic idea of RAID was to combine multiple, small inexpensive
disks drive into an array of disk drives which yields performance
exceeding that of a Single, Large Expensive Drive(SLED).
Additionally this array of drives appear to the computer as a single
logical storage unit or drive.

Improvement of Reliability via
Redundancy
•In a SLED Reliabity becomes a big problem as the data in an
entire disk may be lost .
As the number of disks per component increases, the
probability of failure also increases .
- Suppose a (reliable) disk fails every 100,000 hrs.
Reliabity of a disk in an array of N disks = Reliability of 1 disk
/ N
100000hrs / 100 = 1000 hrs = 41.66 days !!
Solution ?
Redundancy

Redundancy
Mirroring
Data Striping

Mirroring
Duplicate every disk
Logical disk consists of two physical disks.
Every write is carried out on both disks.
If one of the disk fails, data read from the other
Data permanently lost only if the second disk fails before the first
failed disk is replaced.

Reliability in Mirroring
Suppose mean time to repair is 10 hrs ,
the mean time to data loss of a mirrored disk system is
100,000 ^ 2 / (2 * 10) hrs ~ 57,000 years !
Main disadvantage :
Most expensive approach .

Parallel Disk Systems
• We cannot improve the disk performance significantly as a single
drive
- But many applications require high performance storage systems ?
• Solutions :
- Parallel Disk Systems
- Higher Reliability and Higher data-transfer rate.

DATA STRIPING
Fundamental to RAID
A method of concatenating multiple drives into one logical storage
unit.
Splitting the bits of each byte across multiple disks : bit – level
striping
e.g. an array of eight disks, write bit i of each byte to disk I
Sectors are eight times the normal size
Eight times the access rate
Similarly for blocks of file, block-level striping

Logical to Physical Data mapping for striping
strip 0
strip 1
strip 2
strip 3
strip 4
strip 15
strip 14
strip 13
strip 12
strip11
strip 10
strip 9
strip 8
strip 7
strip 6
strip 5
strip 0
strip 4
strip 8
strip 12
strip 1
strip 5
strip 9
strip 13
strip 2
strip 6
strip 10
strip 14
strip 3
strip 7
strip 11
strip 15
Physical
Disk 0
Physical
Disk 1
Physical
Disk 2
Physical
Disk 3

RAID LEVELS
Data are distributed across the array of disk drives
Redundant disk capacity is used to store parity information, which
guarantees data recoverability in case of a disk failure
Levels decided according to schemes to provide redundancy at
lower cost by using striping and “parity” bits
Different cost-performance trade-offs

RAID 0
Striping at the level of blocks
Data split across in drives resulting in higher data throughput
Performance is very good but the failure of any disk in the array
results in data loss
RAID 0 commonly referred to as striping
Reliability Problems : No mirroring or parity bits

RAID 1
• Introduce redundancy through mirroring
• Expensive
• Performance Issues
-- No data loss if either drive fails
– Good read performance
– Reasonable write performance
• Cost / MB is high
• Commonly referred to as “mirroring”

RAID 1(Mirrored)
strip 0
strip 4
strip 8
strip 12
strip 1
strip 5
strip 9
strip 13
strip 2
strip 6
strip 10
strip 14
strip 3
strip 7
strip 11
strip 15
strip 0
strip 4
strip 8
strip 12
strip 1
strip 5
strip 9
strip 13
strip 2
strip 6
strip 10
strip 14
strip 3
strip 7
strip 11
strip 15

RAID 2
• Uses Hamming (or any other) error-correcting code (ECC)
• Intended for use in drives which do not have built-in error detection
• Central idea is if one of the disks fail the remaining bits of the byte
and the associated ECC bits can be used to reconstruct the data
• Not very popular
f0(b)b2b1b0 b2
f1(b) f2(b)

RAID 3
• Improves upon RAID 2, known as Bit-Interleaved Parity
• Disk Controllers can detect whether a sector has been read
correctly.
• Storage overhead is reduced – only 1 parity disk
• Expense of computing and writing parity
• Need to include a dedicated parity hardware
P(b)b2b1b0 b2

RAID 4
• Stripes data at a block level across several drives, with parity
stored on one drive - block-interleaved parity
• Allows recovery from the failure of any of the disks
• Performance is very good for reads
• Writes require that parity data be updated each time. Slows small
random writes but large writes are fairly fast
block 0
block 4
block 8
block 12
block 1
block 5
block 9
block 13
block 2
block 6
block 10
block 14
block 3
block 7
block 11
block 15
P(0-3)
P(4-7)
P(8-11)
P(12-15)

RAID 5
• Block-interleaved Distributed parity
• Spreads data and parity among all N+1 disks, rather than storing
data in N disks and parity in 1 disk
• Avoids potential overuse of a single parity disk – improvement
over RAID 4
• Most common parity RAID system
block 0
block 4
block 8
block 12
P(16-19)
block 1
block 5
block 9
P(12-15)
block 16
block 2
block 6
P(8-11)
block 13
block 17
block 3
P(4-7)
block 10
block 14
block 18
P(0-3)
block 7
block 11
block 15
block 19

RAID 10
• Advantages
– Highly fault tolerant
– High data availability
– Very good read / write performance
• Disadvantages
– Very expensive
• Applications
– Where high performance and redundancy are critical

Selecting a RAID Level
•RAID 0 – High-Performance applications where data loss is not
critical
• RAID 1 – High Reliability with fast recovery
• RAID 10/01 – Both performance and reliability are important,
e.g. in small databases
• RAID 5 – Preferred for storing large volumes of data
• RAID 6 – Not Supported currently by many RAID
implementations

References
1.www.bridgeport.edu/sed/fcourses/cpe473/Lectures/RAID.ppt
2. r61505.csie.nctu.edu.tw/OG/project/extra6-Ch8-RAID.ppt
3. A. Silberschatz, P. B. Galvin, and G. Gagne, Operating System
Concepts, 7th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2005

Understanding RAID Levels (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5)

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (9)

Similar to Understanding RAID Levels (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5) (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Understanding RAID Levels (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5)