Understanding RAID level-0

RAID level-0 stripes the data across all the drives in the pool. This offers substantial speed enhancement, but provides no data redundancy. RAID level-0 provides the largest storage capacity of the RAID levels that are offered, because no room is taken for redundant data or data-parity storage.

RAID level-0 requires a minimum of two drives and, depending upon the level of firmware and the stripe size, supports a maximum of 48 drives.

The following illustration shows an example of a RAID level-0 logical device.

RAID level-0 example

Start with two physical drives. RAID Level 0 example
Create a pool using the two physical drives. RAID Level 0 example
Then create a logical device within that pool. RAID Level 0 example
The data is striped across the drives, creating blocks.

Notice that the data is striped across all the drives in the pool, but no redundant data is stored.

RAID Level 0 example

A physical drive failure within the pool results in loss of data in the logical drive assigned RAID level-0, but only in that logical device. If you have logical drives assigned RAID level-1 or 5 in the same pool, they will not lose data.

When you replace a failed drive, the controller can rebuild all the RAID level-1 and 5 logical devices automatically onto the replacement physical drive. However, any data stored in a failed RAID level-0 logical device is lost.

Although the risk of data loss is present, you might want to assign RAID level-0 to one of the logical devices to take advantage of the speed this RAID level offers. You can use this logical device to store data that you back up each day and can re-create easily. You also might want to use a RAID level-0 logical drive when you require maximum capacity.

RAID level-0 offers the following advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages Disadvantages
  • Substantial speed enhancement
  • Maximum utilization of physical drive storage capacity, because no room is taken for redundant data or data-parity storage
No data redundancy, resulting in data loss in the event that a physical drive fails

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