Intel Application Accelerator User's Manual

RAID Background

2 RAID Background

RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) was originally conceived at the University of

California at Berkeley in 1987 by David A. Patterson, Garth Gibson, and Randy H. Katz. The

focus of their research was to improve storage subsystem performance and reliability. As a result

of their findings, they proposed five levels of RAID (RAID 0 – RAID 5) to provide a balance of

performance and data protection. Each RAID level is designed for speed, data protection, or a

combination of both. Patterson, Gibson, and Katz published their findings in a document titled “A

Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID).” This

document

is archived at the

University of California, Berkeley:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/TechRepPages/CSD-87-391

RAID was designed to improve the way computers manage and access mass storage of data by

providing an independent and redundant system of disks. Instead of writing to one Single Large

Expensive Disk (SLED), RAID writes to multiple independent disks.

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