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Definition of RAID Levels
RAID 0
is typically defined as a group of striped disk drives without parity or data redundancy. RAID 0
arrays can be configured with large stripes for multi-user environments or small stripes for single-user
systems that access long sequential records. RAID 0 arrays deliver the best data storage efficiency
and performance of any array type. The disadvantage is that if one drive in a RAID 0 array fails, the
entire array fails.
RAID 1
, also known as disk mirroring, is simply a pair of disk drives that store duplicate data but
appear to the computer as a single drive. Although striping is not used within a single mirrored drive
pair, multiple RAID 1 arrays can be striped together to create a single large array consisting of pairs of
mirrored drives. All writes must go to both drives of a mirrored pair so that the information on the
drives is kept identical. However, each individual drive can perform simultaneous, independent read
operations. Mirroring thus doubles the read performance of a single non-mirrored drive and while the
write performance is unchanged. RAID 1 delivers the best performance of any redundant array type.
In addition, there is less performance degradation during drive failure than in RAID 5 arrays.