What is a "RAID"?

[rahlzel]

I have a feeling this term is somewhat new, and I've been out of the computer tech business for a while since I'm deployed. What is a RAID? What is it used for? What benefits does it have?

Knowledge is power

 

[aj2003]

its hard drive thing, been discussed loads before, and involves more typing that i can be bothered to do lol. Stick it in search or go to wiki.

 

[The General]

It's a Reduntant Array of Independant Disks.

For everything else, use The Internets.

 

[Nikkon]

In a nut shell:

RAID 0 -> Data is split between even number of disks, which makes read and write times faster.

RAID 1 -> Data is duplicated to other disks so that if a sector on the primary disk fails it is recoverable.

RAID 1/0 -> Data is split between even numbers of disks and further duplicated to other disks.

Those are the 3 most common RAID configuration, there are others but are not used often.

 

[veg1992]

raid 5 is also pretty common,

 

[Nitestick]

RAID 0 doesn't require an even number of disks, just two or more disks. RAID certainly isn't anything new mate i've never bothered to look into how old it is but i have a server in my spare room from 1996 that was equipped stock with an SCSI RAID array.