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Don't Overlook The Important RAID Technology When Using A NAS

Don’t Overlook The Important RAID Technology When Using A NAS

Network Storage Has Become One Of The Most Important Tools In The Business World. Companies Can indeed Do Their Business Without The Need For Storage, But Nass Allow Businesses To Easily Organize Information And Simplify The Process Of Sharing Information By Providing A Unified And Efficient Mechanism. 

When you intend to buy storage, you should pay attention to various points, but one thing is more important that will affect all the factors you pay attention to when purchasing storage.

It is an essential matter of RAID technology that the storage supports or that you need. In this article, we will briefly introduce different Reed architectures, and we will list the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

An additional array of inexpensive disks

People working in the networking and storage space are familiar with Reed technology, but not all know precisely which level of this architecture meets their business needs. This article will introduce you to the differences and capabilities each offer.

“Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks” ( RAID), called Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, is one of the most popular techniques in the world of networking and storage. While it is more than three decades old, there is still no suitable replacement.

Reed can improve the performance of reading and writing operations while providing a data protection mechanism. Typically, depending on the architecture you choose, Read tries to use a buffer memory called a cache to aggregate stub write operations.

This way, it stores small write operations in the cache and sends them to storage at once. This will significantly reduce the number of write operations on the repository. It also uses a parallel write technique to manipulate the array’s disks and improve performance automatically.

However, it all depends on the type of Reed architecture you intend to use. Some models have specific hardware dependencies, and your array must support the minimum hardware requirements. Fortunately, there are different levels of Reed architecture, each of which can be used for other applications. Of course, the effectiveness of this technology depends on the work requirements and the type of business activities.

What is the difference between RAID levels, and how do you choose the right one?

RAID is available in different levels, but most organizations use one of the five standard levels of 0, 1, 5, 6, or 10. There are also mixed types, such as 7, 50, 60, etc., but they are rarely used in certain situations. Most Reed levels can store data on multiple drives, but each does so differently.

RAID 0

  • Based on the RAID 0 architecture, all data is divided into blocks written to the drives. This type of architecture and information writing is called striping, based on the parallel paper of information on the disk. One of the benefits of a similar writing index is to increase the speed of reading and writing data. In the above architecture, no information is duplicated; therefore, the teach drive’s entire sttotalcapacity is used bestThe downside of RAID 0 is that it does not provide any protection mechanism, and there is always a risk of data loss. In the above architecture, if any drives fail, the data on that drive cannot be recovered.

RAID 1

  • All data is written twice to the disks. More precisely, data is first written to a drive or drive, and then the same data is stored on another drive or drive. We call this information writing technique the “mirroring” model.
  • RAID 1 is used to prevent the risk of data loss. If one of the drives fails, the data can be recovered because there is a reliable copy of the information. RAID 1 provides the same read and writes speeds as a single-drive system because the read and write operations are performed on a single disk, which reduces performance. Another disadvantage of RAID 1 is that only half of the capacity of the storage array is used because half of the power is always used to keep backup copies of data. RAID 1 offers none of the performance benefits of RAID 0 and is as fast as when using a single hard drive system.

RAID 5

  • RAID 5 requires at least three drives, so the storage array you’re considering buying should have at least three trays to host the disk drives. RAID 5 uses a checksum-based balancing mechanism to control and monitor data writing. In the above tool, it is possible to restore lost data based on mathematical calculations. In the above architecture, data is written to all drives along with Checksum data. In this case, the lost data can be recovered using the checksum if any drives fail. One of the advantages of RAID 5 architecture is its high speed in reading data, but the writing rate is slow. In addition, it provides an efficient mechanism for data protection. To be more precise, RAID5. It can tolerate the fault of one drive. Among the disadvantages of this architecture, it should be noted that repairing a broken dream is complicated and time-consuming. Additionally, data is lost if more than one drive fails. The above approach makes a RAID 5-based system face the risk of data loss when the healthy disk is supposed to replace the faulty disk.

RAID 6

  • RAID 6 architecture is similar to RAID 5 architecture, except that balance data is written to two drives instead of one drive. However, the above architecture’s significant advantage is that it can tolerate the failure of two purposes. More precisely, if two drives fail, the array is still serviceable. To implement the above architecture, at least four drives are needed. Therefore, when buying a variety, you should consider examples with relatively high prices.
  • The design and development philosophy of RAID 6 is that if one drive fails, it is unlikely that another drive will die when the failed drive is repaired or replaced. If two drives fail simultaneously under certain conditions, data is not lost. RAID 6 is just as fast at reading data as RAID 5, but when it comes to data protection, it outperforms RAID 5. However, there is one downside to RAID 6; The write operation is slower in RAID 6 than in RAID 5.

RAID 10

RAID 10 is a combination of RAID 1 and RAID 0. In the above architecture, to protect the data against the risk of loss, the data is written on multiple drives and in mirroring mode. The most significant advantage of the above architecture is that the speed of writing information increases significantly. RAID 10 allows data loss from a drive to be recovered faster than RAID 5 or RAID 6 architectures. However, the downside of the above architecture is that, like RAID 1, it depends on data replication. It requires more storage space than RAID 5 or RAID 6.

What kind of RAID should we use in connection with the storage array?

As you can see, each of the mentioned levels has its advantages and disadvantages and differs from each other in technical details. If you are not sure which class is suitable for the network project you are planning to implement, we suggest you pay attention to the following important recommendations:

  • RAID 0: If you want to increase the performance of data that is not critical, it is the best option. However, it would help if you never used it on sensitive data as you risk permanent data loss.
  • RAID 1: Provides the easiest way to protect data and requires the shortest recovery time when the array fails. If you don’t mind the cost of buying hard drives, RAID 1 is a good option because it always provides you with a reliable copy of the data. Suppose the daily activities of your business are many and a large amount of information is generated in one day, or the speed of writing a report is an important issue. In that case, it is better to use Reed 5 or 6 architecture. These levels are especially suitable for web servers and projects that generate and use large amounts of data.
  • RAID 10: provides acceptable performance for most networking projects and is often used when performance is more important than optimal use of storage capacity.

Finally, note that Reed is designed to prevent data loss but is not a substitute for regular data backups.

To be more precise, you need to back up data at specific and short intervals. Because all organizational data is stored in one system, Reed is unable to protect the information in the following situations:

  •  Ransomware attacks.
  •  Theft of drives.
  •  Fire or other natural disasters.
  •  Extreme power fluctuation may damage all purposes at the same time.
  •  User error is when a user accidentally deletes data and overwrites it before recovering it.

The only way to protect data from these threats is to back up data regularly. Copies are to be kept on different media.

Do we need RAID technology when using NAS?

  • RAID is a cost-effective technology to increase performance and reduce the risk of data loss. Depending on your architecture type, Reed allows the server to be online and business services to be available to users without interruption.