When you are hosting web sites, it is essential that your infrastructure has features in place to prevent any one drive from failing. If a disk fails, you don’t want your users to experience downtime or for them to see error pages.
Even though you can set up parity drives and RAID 5 arrays, they have their limitations. For instance, if you host a large number of virtual machines or high-traffic websites on your server, then using RAID 5 might not be the best solution.
If you use RAID 5 storage with virtual machines or high-traffic websites on your server, then it is likely that there will always be some kind of failure with those drives.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the ins and outs of RAID 10 storage and how it can help reduce risks when hosting web sites on your own servers.
What is RAID?
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. If a single disk fails, RAID automatically begins to reconstruct the data from the remaining disks. This is done using parity data. You can configure RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10.
RAID 5 and RAID 6 are the most common configurations, while RAID 10 is less common. These RAID configurations are used when you have a server with more than one hard disk, also known as a storage server.
Typically, servers have several hard disks connected to them. This provides more storage space and redundancy in case a disk fails. One of the reasons that RAID is so popular in data centers is that it allows the administrator to mix and match hard disk models and capacities.
For example, you can use cheaper and smaller disks for your RAID implementation and use the more expensive, larger disks for hosting your data. This is why RAID is so popular.
RAID 10: Disk redundancy without parity
In a RAID 10 configuration, there are no parity drives. Instead, the data is striped across two or more drives. Like RAID 5, RAID 10 uses a distributed parity algorithm to protect against data loss.
The difference between the RAID 5 and RAID 10 configurations is that RAID 10 does not require a dedicated parity drive. Instead, the parity information is distributed across all the drives.
This means that, if a drive fails, the other drives will have the parity data necessary to reconstruct the missing data. This is why RAID 10 is often referred to as RAID without parity.
While RAID 10 is a very reliable solution, data access speed can be affected by the distributed parity algorithm. If one drive fails, then all drives are affected. This means that the other drives will have to calculate the parity data.
This can increase the time required to read and write data to the array.
Benefits of Using RAID 10
Better performance vs. RAID 5 – RAID 5 suffers from reduced speed when one or more drives are faulty. In most cases, this can be solved by removing and replacing the faulty drive. In RAID 10, there are no parity drives, so there is no loss of speed due to faulty drives.
Higher capacity vs. RAID 5 – In a RAID 10 configuration, you can use larger hard disks and increase the overall capacity. This is because there is no dedicated parity drive, which leaves more space for data.
Higher availability vs. RAID 5 – RAID 10 has no parity drives, so the array will continue to operate even when one drive fails. This means that you don’t need to replace the failed drive immediately. Instead, you can wait for the failed drive to be replaced before replacing the drive that failed in the RAID 10 configuration.
Drawbacks of Using RAID 10
Slow rebuild time in the event of a drive failure – While RAID 10 is very reliable, there is a catch. Although unlikely, if a drive fails, the remaining drives have to reconstruct the missing data. This process can last a few hours, depending on the size of the array.
Lower capacity in the event of a drive failure – In the event of a drive failure, capacity is reduced. This is because the RAID 10 array has to wait for the failed drive to be replaced before reconstructing the data. In a RAID 5 configuration, the capacity is reduced by the amount of the failed drive.
The Bottom Line
To recap, RAID 10 is a more efficient solution than. Since RAID 10 has no parity, it will resume normal operation as soon as the failed drive is replaced. This configuration is more efficient when hosting data that needs to be accessed frequently, such as transactional databases.
This is why RAID 10 is the recommended configuration for enterprises, web hosting providers, and large-scale data centers. If you are hosting web sites on your servers, it is essential to have a reliable RAID configuration. While RAID 5 is a good solution, it is not ideal for hosting virtual machines or high-traffic websites.
Here at WebPower, we offer SSD Raid 10 Storage to all of our hosting clients, so if you are looking for web hosting, sign up here!
