CompTIA Tech+ (FC0-U71)InfrastructureHard
A system administrator is deploying a new server that requires high availability and extremely fast storage access for a database. The budget allows for a solution that combines the speed benefits of SSDs with the redundancy of a mirrored array. Which RAID level would best meet these requirements?
- ARAID 0
- BRAID 1
- CRAID 5
- DRAID 10
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. RAID 10
RAID 10 (or RAID 1+0) combines mirroring (RAID 1) for redundancy and striping (RAID 0) for performance. This offers excellent read/write speeds, high fault tolerance (can lose multiple drives as long as they are not mirrors of each other), and is ideal for demanding applications like databases, especially when implemented with SSDs.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. RAID 0 provides excellent speed (striping) but no redundancy, meaning a single drive failure results in total data loss, which is unacceptable for high availability.
- B. RAID 1 provides redundancy (mirroring) but doesn't offer the same performance boost as striping, especially for write operations, compared to RAID 10.
- C. RAID 5 provides both striping and parity for redundancy but has lower write performance than RAID 10 due to parity calculations, and can suffer from slower rebuild times.
RAID 10 (RAID 1+0)
A nested RAID level that combines RAID 1 (mirroring) for data redundancy with RAID 0 (striping) for performance, offering high read/write speeds and excellent fault tolerance.
- Requires a minimum of 4 drives (even number, 2+ pairs).
- Data is striped across mirrored pairs.
- Provides high performance for both reads and writes.
- Can tolerate multiple drive failures, as long as they are not within the same mirrored pair.
- High cost per usable gigabyte due to 50% storage overhead.
Memory trick: RAID 10: Mirrored speed, striped safety, a database's delight.