RAID Technology

Overview

Background
Term coined by researchers at UC-Berkeley
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
Basics of RAID
Disk arrays
Logical/physical
Controller (software/hardware)
 Techniques/Methods

Mirroring

Parity
10101010 XOR 11111111 = 01010101
11111111 XOR 01010101 = 10101010
10101010 XOR 01010101 = 11111111
 Parity -Single Bit Error Detection

A wants to transmit : 1001

A computes parity bit value: 1^0^0^1 = 0
A adds parity bit and sends: 10010
B receives : 10010
B computes parity : 1^0^0^1^0 = 0
B reports correct transmission after observing
expected even result.

*** TRANSMISSION ERROR ***

B receives : 11010
B computes overall parity: 1^1^0^1^0 = 1
B reports incorrect transmission after observing unexpected odd
result.
 Techniques/Methods (contd)

Striping
 RAID 0
Uses striping
I/O performance gain
No Data redundancy
Not fault tolerant
Not considered true RAID
Minimum 2 disks
 RAID 1
Uses mirroring
Also known as duplexing
Fault tolerant
High Disk overhead
Mirroring typically handled system software
Simplest RAID design
Minimum 2 disks
 RAID 2
Error Detection and Correction
Bit level striping
Parity and Hamming Code
Used to identify and correct errors
Hamming Code
Uses parity bits to verify data integrity
Parity bits signify oddness of data bits
ECC (Error Correction Code)
Minimum 3 disks
 RAID 2

Characterized by:
On the fly data correction
High Ratio of Data disks to ECC disks
Not a commercially viable solution
High Costs Involved
For 4 data bits, 3 parity bits needed
(m parity bits cover 2m -1 bit positions)
 RAID 3: XOR

Byte level striping

XOR Logic Table
Exit Hamming Code,
Enter XOR (eXclusive OR) A XOR B Result

0 0 0
XOR in Action:
01012 XOR 00112 = 01102 0 1 1

1 0 1
If ????2 XOR 11002 = 01102,
Then 11002 XOR 01102 = ????2 = 10102 1 1 0

Thus we can use XOR results to recover lost

data
 RAID 3: Pros and Cons

Advantages: Disadvantages:
High Read/Write Transaction rate slowed
Transfer Rates by Parity Disk
Disk failures dont slow Complex Controller
the system Design
Low Ratio of Data Disks Software
to Parity Disks Implementation
Resource Intensive
 RAID 3: Uses

Video Production

High-end Video and Image Editing

Other uses that require high throughput of

data

Minimum 3 disks
 RAID 4
Offshoot of RAID 3
No Striping, Entire files written to individual
disks (block level striping)
Parity Data created on a sector-by-sector
basis
Minimum 3 disks
 RAID 4: Pros, Cons, and Uses

Advantages:
Very high read rates
Multiple files read at once
Uses:
Web Servers, and other
high read, low write
situations
Disadvantages:
Very slow write rates
Even small writes fill up
parity write queue
Inefficient data recovery
Even more Complex
Controller Design than
RAID 3

*Has most of the other Advantages and Disadvantages of RAID

3
 RAID 5
Block level striping with distributed parity
Highest Read data transaction rate
Medium Write data transaction rate
Most complex controller design
Used For Server Applications.
Minimum 3 disks, One disk failure tolerated
 RAID 10

Characterized by:
- each drive duplicated
- high implementation cost
 RAID 0+1

Acts as a mirrored array whose parts

consist of RAID 0 arrays
Very expensive
Works well in handling images
very high data transfer rate
 RAID 0+1

- Not great reliability

- one disk failure leaves you left with only the
characteristics of a striped array (no fault tolerance)
 Conclusion

Grown more complex

Large price range
Huge step forward for industry
Not for the masses yet

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
 New RAID Classification

Failure Resistant (systems

that protect against loss of
data due to drive failure)
Failure-tolerant (systems that
protect against loss of data
access due to failure of any
single component).
 S.M.A.R.T

Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Tool

Monitor hard disk and report
Informs threshold of parameter exceeded or
not exceeded (OK / Fail)
Does not indicate past/present reliability
 SMART

Drive manufacture defines attributes

Sets raw value and worst case threshold
Lower value worst, higher value best case,
except temperature
Examples

read error rate
throughput
relocated sectors

seek time performance
power on hours
command time out