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TechKnowSurge Catalog Interactives Which RAID Level?
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Which RAID Level?

Sort each description into RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 or 10.

⚑ Complete this interactive to capture a CTF flag worth 5 points.

About this interactive

Redundancy belongs everywhere a system depends on something, and that includes the disks that hold its data. RAID combines disks so that, depending on the level, the data is faster, safer, or both. RAID 1 is mirroring: whatever is written to the first disk is also written to the second, so each holds a complete set of data and either can fail. RAID 0 is striping: block 1 goes to the first disk, block 2 to the second, and so on. Writes are slow, so splitting them across disks speeds things up, but RAID 0 has no redundancy. Lose any one disk and the data is lost. RAID 5 stripes the data and adds parity, so any one disk can fail and its data can be recreated. RAID 6 adds a second set of parity, so any two disks can fail. The lesson draws parity on its own drive; in practice RAID 5 and 6 spread the parity across all the disks, using the space of one disk (RAID 5) or two (RAID 6). RAID 5 needs at least three disks and RAID 6 at least four. RAID 10, or RAID 1+0, stripes across mirrored pairs: block 1 to the first pair, block 2 to the second. Every disk has a duplicate, so it keeps running when a disk fails, with striping's speed. It is only guaranteed to survive one failure: two failures in the same pair lose data.

What you'll learn

Aligned to

CompTIA Server+
1.2 Given a scenario, deploy and manage storage.
CompTIA Security+
3.4 Explain the importance of resilience and recovery in security architecture.
ISC2 CC
2.2 Understand redundancy
ISC2 CISSP
7.10 Implement recovery strategies

Key terms

Redundant Array of Independent Disks
RAID
A data storage technology that combines multiple physical drives into a logical unit to improve performance, provide redundancy, or both, depending on the RAID level chosen. Common levels include RAID 0 (striping for speed), RAID 1 (mirroring for redundancy), and RAID 5 (striping with parity).
RAID 0
A RAID configuration that stripes data across two or more drives to improve read and write performance, but provides no fault tolerance — losing any one drive loses all data.
RAID 1
A RAID configuration that mirrors identical data simultaneously across two drives, providing full redundancy so that the array continues operating if either drive fails.
RAID 5
A RAID configuration that stripes data and distributed parity across three or more drives, providing read performance gains and the ability to survive the failure of any single drive.
RAID 6
A RAID configuration that stripes data across four or more drives with two independent sets of parity, allowing the array to survive the simultaneous failure of any two drives.
RAID 10
A nested RAID configuration (RAID 1+0) that applies mirroring at the drive level first, then striping across mirrored pairs, providing both redundancy and performance.
Disk Striping
A RAID technique that splits data across multiple drives to improve read and write performance.
Mirroring
A RAID technique that writes identical copies of data to two or more drives simultaneously so that if one drive fails the other contains a complete working copy; provides redundancy without improving write speed.
Parity
Calculated redundancy data stored across drives in certain RAID levels that allows the array to reconstruct lost data mathematically if a single drive fails.
Redundancy
The duplication of critical components or systems to increase reliability and availability.

Topics

Redundant Array Of Independent Disks Raid 5 Redundancy Parity Interactive Categorize

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