Data Protection: RAID

Chapter 3

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Chapter Objectives
After completing this chapter, you will be able to: Describe what is RAID and the needs it addresses

Describe the concepts upon which RAID is built

Define and compare RAID levels Recommend the use of the common RAID levels based on performance and availability considerations Explain factors impacting disk drive performance

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Data Protection: RAID - 2

Why RAID
Performance limitation of a single drive disk drive
Limited Capacity Limited access speed

An individual drive has a certain life expectancy

Measured in MTBF Example - If the MTBF of a drive is 750,000 hours, and there are 100 drives in the array, then the MTBF of the array becomes 750,000 / 100, or 7,500 hours

RAID was introduced to mitigate this problem RAID provides:

Increase capacity Higher availability Increased performance
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RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks

RAID Controller

Host RAID Array

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RAID Arrays - 4

RAID Array Components

Physical Array

Logical Array

RAID Controller

Hard Disks

Host RAID Array

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Data Protection: RAID - 5

RAID Implementations
Hardware (usually a specialized disk controller card)
Controls all drives attached to it Array(s) appear to host operating system as a regular disk drive Provided with administrative software

Software
Runs as part of the operating system Performance is dependent on CPU workload Does not support all RAID levels

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Data Protection: RAID - 6

RAID Levels
0 Striped array with no fault tolerance 1 Disk mirroring

3 Parallel access array with dedicated parity disk

4 Striped array with independent disks and a dedicated parity disk 5 Striped array with independent disks and distributed parity 6 Striped array with independent disks and dual distributed parity Nested RAID (i.e., 1 + 0, 0 + 1, etc.)
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RAID Redundancy: Parity

0 4 8 1 5 9 RAID Controller

2 6 10
3 7 11 0123 4567
8 9 10 11

Host

Parity Disk
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RAID Arrays - 8

Parity Calculation
5 + 3 + 4 + 2 = 14 5 3
Data

Data

The middle drive fails:

5 + 3 + ? + 2 = 14 ? = 14 5 3 2 ?=4

4
2 14

Data

Data

Parity

RAID Array
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Data Organization: Striping

Stripes

Stripe 1
Strip 1 Strip 2 Strip 3

Strips

Stripe

Strip 1

Strip 2

Strip 3

Stripe 1 Stripe 2
Strips
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RAID 0 Striped Array with no Fault Tolerance

0

1 5 9 RAID Controller

2 6 10
3 7 11

Host

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Data Protection: RAID - 11

RAID 1 Disk Mirroring

Block 0 1

RAID Block 0 1 Controller

Host

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Data Protection: RAID - 12

Nested RAID 0+1 (Striping and Mirroring)

RAID 1

Block 0 Block 2 RAID Controller Block 1

Host RAID 0

Block 0 3 2 1

Block 3

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Data Protection: RAID - 13

Nested RAID 0+1 (Striping and Mirroring)

RAID 1

Block 0 Block 2 RAID Controller Block 1

Host RAID 0

Block 0 Block 2

Block 1 Block 3

Block 3

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Data Protection: RAID - 14

Nested RAID 1+0 (Mirroring and Striping)

RAID 0

Block 1 Block 3 RAID Controller Block 1

Host RAID 1

Block 2 0

Block 3

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Data Protection: RAID - 15

Nested RAID 1+0 (Mirroring and Striping)

RAID 0

Block 0 Block 2 RAID Controller Block 0

Host RAID 1

Block 1 Block 3

Block 1 Block 3

Block 2

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Data Protection: RAID - 16

RAID 0+1 vs. RAID 1+0

Benefits are identical under normal operations Rebuild operations are very different
RAID 1+0 uses a mirrored pair only 1 disk is rebuilt if a disk fails RAID 0+1 if a single drive fails, the entire stripe is faulted
RAID is 0+1 is a poorer solution and is less common

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RAID Arrays - 17

RAID Redundancy: Parity

0 4 8 1 5 9 RAID Controller

2 6 10
3 7 11 0123 4567
8 9 10 11

Host

Parity Disk
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RAID Arrays - 18

RAID Redundancy: Parity

0

4
1 6 5 9 RAID Controller

1 ?

Host

The middle drive fails: Parity calculation 4 + 6 + 1 + 7 = 18

3 7 7 11 0123 4 518 67

4 + 6 + ? + 7 = 18

? = 18 4 6 7
?=1 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.
Parity Disk
Data Protection: RAID - 19

RAID 3 Parallel Transfer with Dedicated Parity Disk

Block 0 3 2 1

RAID0 Block Controller Block Parity1 Generated Block 2

Block 3 P0123

Host

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Data Protection: RAID - 20

RAID 4 Striping with Dedicated Parity Disk

Block 0 Block 4 Block 1 Block 5 Parity RAID0 Block Generated Controller P0123 Block 3

Block 2
Block 6

Block 0

Host

Block 7 P0123 P4567

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RAID Arrays - 21

RAID 5 Independent Disks with Distributed Parity

Block 0 Block 4 Block 1 Block 5 Parity RAID4 Block 0 Generated Controller P4 05 16 27 3 Block 3
Host

Block 2
Block 6

Block 0 4

P4567 P0123 Block 7

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Data Protection: RAID - 22

RAID 6 Dual Parity RAID

Two disk failures in a RAID set leads to data unavailability and data loss in single-parity schemes, such as RAID-3, 4, and 5

Increasing number of drives in an array and increasing drive capacity leads to a higher probability of two disks failing in a RAID set RAID-6 protects against two disk failures by maintaining two parities
Horizontal parity which is the same as RAID-5 parity Diagonal parity is calculated by taking diagonal sets of data blocks from the RAID set members

Even-Odd, and Reed-Solomon are two commonly used algorithms for calculating parity in RAID-6
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RAID Implementations
Hardware (usually a specialized disk controller card)
Controls all drives attached to it Performs all RAID-related functions, including volume management Array(s) appear to the host operating system as a regular disk drive Dedicated cache to improve performance Generally provides some type of administrative software

Software
Generally runs as part of the operating system Volume management performed by the server Provides more flexibility for hardware, which can reduce the cost Performance is dependent on CPU load Has limited functionality
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RAID Comparison
RAID Min Disks Storage Efficiency % Cost Read Performance
Very good for both random and sequential read

Write Performance

100

Low

Very good

50 (n-1)*100/n where n= number of disks (n-1)*100/n where n= number of disks (n-2)*100/n where n= number of disks

High

Good Better than a single disk

Good Slower than a single disk, as every write must be committed to two disks Poor to fair for small random writes Good for large, sequential writes Fair for random write Slower due to parity overhead Fair to good for sequential writes Good for small, random writes (has write penalty)

Moderate

Good for random reads and very good for sequential reads Very good for random reads Good for sequential reads Very good for random reads Good for sequential reads

Moderate

Moderate but more than RAID 5

1+0 and 0+1

50

High

Very good

Good

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Data Protection: RAID - 25

RAID Impacts on Performance

RAID Controller

Ep new
Ep new

Ep old
Ep old

2 XOR

E4 old

+
E4 old

E4 new
E4 new

P0

D1

D2

D3

D4

Small (less than element size) write on RAID 3 & 5

Ep = E1 + E2 + E3 + E4 (XOR operations)

If parity is valid, then: Ep new = Ep old E4 old + E4 new (XOR operations)

2 disk reads and 2 disk writes

Parity Vs Mirroring
Reading, calculating and writing parity segment introduces penalty to every write operation Parity RAID penalty manifests due to slower cache flushes Increased load in writes can cause contention and can cause slower read response times
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Hot Spares

RAID Controller

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Data Protection: RAID - 28

 Check Your Knowledge

What is a RAID array? What benefits do RAID arrays provide?

What methods can be used to provide higher data availability in a RAID array?
What is the primary difference between RAID 3 and RAID 5? What is advantage of using RAID 6? What is a hot spare?

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Data Protection: RAID - 32