Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition, User Manual

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RAID 0 (Striping)
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User's Manual 13
3 RAID 0 (Striping)
RAID 0 leverages the read/write capabilities of two or more hard drives working in unison to
maximize the storage performance of a computer system. Data in a RAID 0 array is arranged into
blocks that are interleaved among the disks so that reads and writes can be performed in parallel
(see below diagram). This technique, known as “striping”, is the fastest of all of the RAID levels,
especially for reading and writing large sequential files. Real world usage models where RAID 0
can be of particular benefit include loading large files into an image editing application such as
Adobe* Photoshop*, saving large movie files in a video editing application such as Adobe*
Premiere*, or creating CD or DVD images with a CD/DVD authoring package such as Roxio*
Easy CD Creator*.
The hard drives in a RAID 0 array are combined to form one volume which appears as a single
virtual drive to the operating system. For example, two 40 GB hard drives in a RAID 0 array will
appear as a single 80 GB hard drive to the operating system.
No redundancy information is stored in a RAID 0 array. This means that if one hard drive fails,
all data on both drives is lost. This lack of redundancy is also reflected by the RAID level 0,
which indicates no redundancy. RAID 0 is not recommended for use in servers or other
environments where data redundancy is a primary goal.
Figure 1. RAID 0
Minimum Disks:
2
Advantage:
Highest transfer rates
Redundancy:
None – if one disk fails all data will be lost
Application:
Typically used in desktops and workstations for maximum performance for temporary
data and high I/O rate