Chapter 1. Introducing the 3ware® 9000 Series Controller
8 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
RAID 10
This array is a combination of RAID 1 with RAID 0. Striped and mirrored
arrays for fault tolerance and high performance. Requires a minimum of four
drives to use both RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques.
When drives are configured as a striped mirrored array, the disks are
configured using both RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques, thus the name RAID
10 (see Figure 4). A minimum of four drives are required to use this
technique. The first two drives are mirrored as a fault tolerant array using
RAID 1. The third and fourth drives are mirrored as a second fault tolerant
array using RAID 1. The two mirrored arrays are then grouped as a striped
RAID 0 array using a two tier structure. Higher data transfer rates are
achieved by leveraging TwinStor and striping the arrays.
In addition, RAID 10 arrays offer a higher degree of fault tolerance than other
types of RAID levels (such as RAID 1 and RAID 5), since the array can
sustain multiple drive failures without data loss. For example, in a twelve
drive RAID 10 array, up to six drives can fail (half of each mirrored pair) and
the array will continue to function. Please note that if both halves of a
mirrored pair in the RAID 10 array fail, then all of the data will be lost.
Figure 4. RAID 10 Configuration Example
RAID 50
This array is a combination of RAID 5 with RAID 0. This array type provides
fault tolerance and high performance. Requires a minimum of six drives.
Several combinations are available with RAID 50. For example, on a 12-port
controller, you can have a grouping of 3, 4, or 6 drives. A grouping of 3 means
that the RAID 5 arrays used have 3 disks each; four of these 3-drive RAID 5
arrays are striped together to form the 12-drive RAID 50 array.
In addition, RAID 50 arrays offer a higher degree of fault tolerance than other
types of RAID levels (such as RAID 1 and RAID 5), since the array can
sustain multiple drive failures without data loss. For example, in a twelve
drive RAID 50 array, up to one drive in each RAID 5 set can fail and the array
will continue to function. Please note that if two or more drives in a RAID 5
set fail, then all of the data will be lost.
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