User`s guide

StorTrends® NAS Software (Version 2.2) User’s Guide
106
Selecting a RAID Level
There are six official RAID levels (RAID 0 through RAID 5). The StorTrends NAS
Software supports RAID levels 0, 1, and 5.
RAID Level Type
0 Standard
1 Standard
5 Standard
To ensure the best performance, you should select the optimal RAID level when you
create a system volume. The optimal RAID level for your volume depends on a number
of factors:
• the number of hard disk drives in the NAS server
• the capacity of the hard disk drives in the NAS server
• the need for data redundancy
• the hard disk drive performance requirements
The factors you need to consider when selecting a RAID level are listed below:
Level Description and Use Pros Cons Max.
Hard
Disk
Drives
Fault
Tolerant
0 Data divided in blocks and
distributed sequentially (pure
striping). Use for non-critical data
that requires high performance.
High data
throughput for
large files
No fault
tolerance. All
data lost if any
hard disk drive
fails.
one to 32 no
1 Data duplicated on another hard disk
drive (mirroring). Use for read-
intensive fault-tolerant systems
100% data
redundancy
Reduces total
hard disk drive
space by half.
Reduced
performance
during rebuilds.
two yes
5 Disk striping and parity data across
all hard disk drives. Use for high
read volume but low write volume,
such as transaction processing.
Achieves data
redundancy at
low cost
Performance not
as good as RAID
1
three to 32 yes