There are many levels in the RAID. The RAID levels can be dividing such as the Single RAID Level or the Multiple RAID levels also known as the nested RAID levels. The different RAID levels are the following: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 2, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 7 and the RAID 01/10, RAID 03/30, RAID 05/50 and also the RAID 15/51. The differences are according to the differentiating factors. The major differentiating issues related to the RAID levels are described in detail as given below:

The first and the most important thing in the discussion for differences in the different levels of the RAID is the number of disks that are used in the implementation of the RAID. The minimum sizes as well as the maximum number of the disks that can be used in the implementation of the RAID are considered for the differentiating factor. The maximum size is mostly dependent upon the RAID controller. The system of the RAID 01/10 and RAID 15/51 must have the even number of disk drives and a minimum 6. The RAID 03/30 and 05/50 can only have the sizes of the number of disk drives that is a product of integers and too a minimum of 6.

The next factor of differentiation is the capacity and the storage efficiency. The smallest size of the disk drive in the array can be considered as ‘S’. And the number of disk drives in the array can be considered as the ‘N’. But for the RAID 03 and 30; ‘N0’ is considered as the width of the RAID 0 dimension of the array. And width of the RAID 3 dimension is considered as the ‘N3’. Hence a 12 disk RAID 30 array that is made by creating the three four (4) disk RAID 3 arrays and then striping all of them will have the N3 as equal to four (4) and N0 as equal to three (3). This is similar to the ‘N5’ in the RAID 05/50.

Another differentiating factor for the comparison of the different Levels of the RAID is the storage efficiency that may assume that all the disk drives are similar and the identical size in nature. If this is not possible, then the universal computation that is the array capacity is divided by the sum of all the disk drives sizes must be made use of.

Performance is also another differentiating factor that is to be used for the differentiation of the different Levels of the RAID. The ratings are used as the approximations in some cases. But that may reflect the personal views of the user.

The other and the considerably the last factor for the differentiation is the cost. The cost of implementation, cost of installations, the cost of configuration and the cost of maintenance and finally the cost of management should be relatively low and operational. The cost involved in the practicalities should be approximate to the cost of the theoretical assumptions.

Data Recovery Software - RAID Recovery

More Information
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 1+0
RAID 5
Adaptive RAID
Different RAID Levels
RAID Configuration
RAID Advantages
RAID Reliability Issues
Bad RAID Parity
RAID Concept
RAID Controller
Software Vs Hardware RAID
Quantum DX30 Drives
IBM Servers RAID
IDE RAID Controllers
Fibre Channel
RAID SATA Data Loss
SCSI Interface
Hot Swapping
Storage Controllers
Western Digital RAID Drives
Technical Factors RAID
NAS Servers
Storage Area Network

Related Information
USB Storage Devices
SCSI Tape Drives
Online Data Backup
Project Management
Workflow Software