Whats the deal with RAID

[dutch_w]

i know what RAID is but how does raid speed up hdd performance ?

------------------
Thank you for booting windows for the first time "Error, This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shutdown"

[dutch_w]

****! i only just realized wrong forum, oh well.......

------------------
Thank you for booting windows for the first time "Error, This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shutdown"

[lownote]

Well, I'm not familiar with video RAID, but I'll try to respond. (Sorry.)

RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It has different levels, so you an expect to see weird looking descriptions like RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5.

RAID 0 is the performance booster. It involves "striping" or creating a volume that spans disks and channels...thereby dramatically speeding I/O performance. It's also the most risky, in that if you lose one drive, you pretty much lose all your data.

I won't go into RAID 1 & 5 here, since I assume you're concerned with performance, as opposed to redundancy. However, here's a link to a really good site which covers RAID in more detail than you'd ever want:
http://www.raid5.com/04_01_00.html

Good luck,
Jerry

[CTho9305]

The way striping works (across 2 drivers, for example), is that each drive only handles 1/2 the data, which provides a significant speed boost.

search here for RAID, they have an excellent explanation in more detail

------------------
Impossible? Watch me.

[warhorse]

I thought the I stood for Independent... inexpensive would kind of be deceiving.. I mean, a RAID 0,1 array of 60gig SCSIs would not be inexpensive!

------------------
A man is offered either infinite wisdom, or infinite money. He chooses the wisdom, thinks for a minute, and realizes he should have taken the money.

[Bink]

*Bink attempts to estimate the price of a RAID 0+1 configuration with 60Gb RAID SCSI when smoke starts to pour out of his ears!*

Yeah, not so cheap

------------------
HWC Members Gallery
www.hwcpics.totalserve.co.uk

HWC ICQ Active List
57497564