RAID 0, 1, 0+1, etc...

While working in our server room this past week and seeing how all the computer equipment has been configured. I noticed a rack of 12 computer hard disk drives (HDDs) providing the company with applications, user information, and synchronized data to and from the computers at the company's headquarters in Minnesota. The use of multiple HHDs helps improve perfromance network server and provides fault tolerance for network servers. The process is knows as Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, as known simply as RAID.

There are several types of RAID configurations but the most widely used are:

• RAID 0 - The fastest but provides no redundancy, so if one of your drives crash all your data cannot be recovered.
  
• RAID 1 - Provides the best redundancy because all data is mirrored on all of the drives, but it is slower.
  
• RAID 0+1 - A hybrid resulting in speed and redundacy.
  
• RAID 5 - The industry standard due to the use of parity that provides good fault tolerance.

I have decided to create my own RAID system, but on a smaller scale. I bought 2 Serial ATA HDDs and I will configure them in a RAID 0 configuration. I am looking to improve the speed of applications and games, but not redundancy. I will store all of my vital data on a traditional EIDE HDD. Hopefully I will see improved performance in my computer. If not, it would still be a good learning experience.