There are two common ways of Implementing the RAID. They are implementing RAID in software and implementing RAID in hardware. The implementing of RAID uses a special processor in the controller such as Input/Output Controller to handle the various RAID tasks. The processor is a part of the server.

Most common hardware implementation is IOP RAID. It is expensive and flexible. The administrator faces the major drawback is cost. Because of the processor and other software’s, IOP RAID is very expensive method. The separate processor and software give the RAID system gives greater strength to handle recovery and disk rebuilding. Different approach to implementing hardware RAID is IOC, advantage of controller-based RAID is that it is a cheaper form of hardware RAID. Controller- based RAID uses processors on the disk controllers.

Drawback of controller based RAID is bad performance and is not flexible compared to IOP. IOC is restricted by the power of the processor and the memory bandwidth of the controller, so it is slow then IOP RAID. Controller-based RAID cannot do as management jobs as compared to IOP RAID. Controller-based RAID can implement tasks at the background and is independent of the operating system. IOC RAID is not well suited for high performances like databases, it provides a best method of achieving the benefits of hardware RAID.

Software RAID can be implemented using disk controller driver or by operating system. They are cheaper then Hardware RAID. Software RAID systems are not good performer and are not reliable when compared to hardware RAID. Software RAID can be useful in small applications where performance is not the matter. Driver-based RAID is cheaper version of RAID implementation.

It is used in drivers of the hard disk controllers. It is independent of the operating system. Operating System based RAID uses a RAID engine in the operating system. Operating System based RAID is operating System dependent. Both disk controller driver and operating system driver RAID are dependent on system processor which can be specifically used in low performance and lightly loaded environment.

Redundancy is the factor for development of RAID in server environments. The redundancy depends on which version of RAID is used. This allows for backup of the data in the storage in the event of failure. If one of the drives is failed, it could swapped out for a new drive without disturbing the system performance.

The better performance is found when some specific versions of the RAID are used. Performance will also be dependent upon the number of drives used. There are generally three types of RAID used for desktop computer RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 5. In most cases, the first two of these versions i.e., RAID 0 & RAID 1 is available.

Data Recovery Software - RAID Recovery

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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

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