CompTIA Tech+ (FC0-U71)IT Concepts and TerminologyMedium
A new server is being configured for a data center. The administrator needs to calculate the total storage capacity of a RAID 5 array consisting of five 8TB hard drives. What is the usable storage capacity of this RAID 5 array?
- A24TB
- B40TB
- C8TB
- D32TB
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. 32TB
RAID 5 uses one drive's capacity for parity across the array. With five 8TB drives, one drive (8TB) is used for parity, leaving 4 drives (4 * 8TB = 32TB) for usable storage.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. This would be the usable capacity for a RAID 5 array with four 8TB drives.
- B. This is the total raw capacity (5 * 8TB), not the usable capacity for RAID 5.
- C. This would be the usable capacity for RAID 1 with two 8TB drives, or if only one drive was used.
RAID 5
A Redundant Array of Independent Disks configuration that stripes data and parity blocks across multiple drives, providing both data redundancy and performance benefits.
- Requires a minimum of 3 drives.
- Uses the equivalent of one drive for parity information.
- Offers good read performance; write performance can be slower due to parity calculations.
Memory trick: RAID: Redundancy Always Improves Data!