Redundant Array of Independent Drives (RAID)

RAID allows the system to take advantage of more than one single physical hard disk drive. WebDeal uses dedicated IBM ServeRAID controllers in each server to manage the disks within one array. This allows Suse Linux Enterprise Server or any other supported operating systems to detect a RAID array like a single disk.

WebDeal recommends IBM ServeRAID controllers over software RAID drivers on Linux in order to achieve better stability.

Which RAID type should I choose ?

WebDeal offers four different types of RAID setup, all with their own specific advantages and disadvantages. Look at the table below for a brief overview.

 

Advantages

Disadvantages

Capacity

RAID 0
  • Quick reading of data
  • Need only two drives
  • No redundancy
  • Each disk is a single point of failure

2 x 100 GB disks give 200 GB of active storage capacity

RAID 1
  • All data stored twice
  • Redundant disks
  • Need only two drives
  • No performance benefits

2 x 100 GB disks give 100 GB of active storage capacity

RAID 5
  • High total capacity utilisation per disk
  • Redundant disks
  • Quick reading of data
  • Slow to write data
  • Needs three or more drives
  • Not supported by all servers

3 x 100 GB disks give 200 GB of active storage capacity

RAID 10
  • Very quick reading of data
  • Redundant disks
  • Needs four disks
  • Not supported by all servers

4 x 100 GB disks give 200 GB of active storage capacity

In general, WebDeal recommends choosing a RAID 1 setup for ordinary Linux servers. However, for low-activity servers with a high storage capacity demand, RAID 5 can be an option. It's not recommended to use RAID 0 in single server configurations – this setup should only be used in a cluster where the uptime of each node is not essential.

Read also about our choice of hard disk drives to fully understand storage performance.

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