The various technical factors that differentiates various RAID levels is there are number of ways to configure hard disks, and the RAID users want many different levels of RAID in order to initiate it. Many RAID levels are similar to others in one or many ways. Sometimes, the differences between levels look to be small and can have a huge impact on the characteristics of the array and the applications. To differentiate between a single and multiple RAID level, we use most important characteristics, including those related to fault tolerance, capacity, performance, cost and other attributes. In order to avoid duplication, they are provided with section that describes what these technical factors about.

The technical factor differentiating the various RAID levels have some implementers which helps in creating array for a system, in addition to the descriptions the more general discussions of performance and reliability issues in the section covers more general concepts and issues. The technique which is used to provide redundancy in a different RAID level is a primary different. In general, redundancies are provided in RAID levels through the use of mirroring. The mirroring technique uses a single RAID levels, or a multiple RAID levels and employ mirroring for redundancy. RAID 1 includes mirroring of the hard disk controller called duplexing.

The Striping with Parity uses a single RAID levels, or a multiple RAID levels for data redundancy. Some of them uses neither mirroring nor parity. But some of them uses both mirroring and Striping with Parity in Multiple RAID levels to have the best of both world forms of redundancy protection. The exact way that striping with parity is implemented depends on the particulars of the level as well. Some levels involve striping of individual bytes or sectors, while others use larger blocks; in the latter case, the size of the blocks is controlled by the stripe size of the array. RAID 2 uses a special form of striping with parity that is actually more like the ECC encoding used to protect data on various computer devices.

The method for redundancy affects every characteristic of an array, and performance, fault tolerance and cost. RAID levels also are not similar in terms of the controller. Simple controllers implement simple RAID levels, while complex RAID levels require sophisticated and expensive controllers. Some levels don't even require a controller for functioning operating system. The simplest RAID levels which are supported by software RAID include RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1 or 1+0 Different RAID levels have varying requirements for the hard disks.

The most important difference between levels is the minimum number of drives in the array. Simple striping requires two or more drives, while mirroring requires two drives and striping requires at least three drives. The number of drives is limited by the RAID controller in order to inherent for the different RAID level. Finally, all RAID levels work best when they are having identical drives with identical capacity. The different RAID levels can tolerate differences in performance between drives.

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RAID 3
RAID 4
RAID 6
RAID Implementation
RAID Parity
Resizing RAID regions
Testing RAID Drives
General Concept - RAID
Single RAID level
RAID Parity Corruption
Multiple / Nested RAID level
Bunch of Hard Disks
Data Loss from RAID Servers
Serial ATA RAID
RAID Data Recovery
Comparision of RAID Levels
RAID Toolbox
SCSI RAID
RAID Performance
Storage Controllers - RAID
MAC- RAID Installation
RAID Technology
RAID Cost
Windows Server Installation

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