Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® SATA RAID Controller10 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User GuideDetermining What RAID Level to UseYour choice of which type of RAID unit (array) to create will depend on yourneeds. You may wish to maximize speed of access, total amount of storage, orredundant protection of data. Each type of RAID unit offers a different blendof these characteristics.The following table provides a brief summary of RAID type characteristics.You can create one or more units, depending on the number of drives youhave installed.Table 3: RAID Configuration TypesRAID Type DescriptionRAID 0 Provides performance, but no fault tolerance.RAID 1 Provides fault tolerance and a read speed advantage over non-RAID disks.RAID 5 This type of unit provides performance, fault tolerance, and highstorage efficiency. RAID 5 units can tolerate one drive failingbefore losing data.RAID 6 Provides very high fault tolerance with the ability to protectagainst two consecutive drive failures. Performance andefficiency increase with higher numbers of drives.RAID 10 A combination of striped and mirrored units for fault toleranceand high performance.RAID 50 A combination of RAID 5 and RAID 0. It provides high faulttolerance and performance.Single Disk Not a RAID type, but supported as a configuration.Provides for maximum disk capacity with no redundancy.Table 4: Possible Configurations Based on Number of Drives# Drives Possible RAID Configurations1 Single disk or hot spare2 RAID 0 or RAID 13 RAID 0RAID 1 with hot spareRAID 5
