RAID stands for redundant array of independent disks. There are various RAID implementations, some built for boosting the performance, some for increasing the redundancy of the data and some others for achieving both. RAID 0 is built solely for performance boosting. In RAID 0, the data is split in to stripes and is stored independently on different drives. The data is read or transferred parallely and this increases the speed of RAID 0 system. Basically, for such a system, redundancy or fail safe is zero or does not exist. In RAID 0, error checking is not implemented. So, one cannot check for errors in his data in a RAID 0 system.
More number of drives increases the speed with which one can access or write data incredibly. But if even one drive fails in a RAID 0 system, the entire information stored on all the three drives is lost because the data is stored in divided blocks. To put it simply, if you are storing a movie file on a RAID 0 system, some part of the movie is stored on drive one, some of it is stored on other drive and remaining part on remaining drives. So, even if one drive fails, one part of your movie is destroyed. And as a result, the integrity of your movie file is disrupted. So, you cannot play the file.
RAID 0 implementation is used in gaming servers where there is no need for a failsafe, but the only need is higher speed. If you notice that one hard drive among your RAID 0 system is failing, you should immediately back up the drive, or remove the drive from RAID 0 system by copying the data on that drives to other drives of RAID 0 system. In this way, one can protect their data from a hard disk failure. In case of a failed hard drive in a RAID 0 system, it is not impossible to recover the data but it is not even easy. The data from the failed hard drive disks can be collected by specialized professionals and some softwares. Then that data can be added to the existing RAID 0 system.
There are other RAID implementations like RAID 1, 2, 3 and so on till 6. Some of these are built strictly for data security such as RAID 1. This implementation needs at least two identical hard drives. RAID 1 mirrors the data stored on one drive on to the other, so that in case of failure, a back-up is immediately available.
By: Sandeep Mahanthi
Call 714-662-4959 or 800-392-6962
Showing posts with label speed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speed. Show all posts
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sony’s contribution to tape drive storage: AIT which means Advanced Intelligent Tape
Advanced Intelligent Tape or better known as AIT is a high speed data format which is used for storage of digital data on tape drives. AIT was discontinued by Sony in 2010 and Sony announced its collaboration with HP on development of DDR tape drive format. AIT used a cassette similar to Video8. Super AIT or SAIT is an advanced and a high capacity variant of the normal AIT tape drive. Both AIT and SAIT use helical scan method for data transfer similar to VCR device. AIT technology is primarily available in two physical form factors. One is AIT –8 mm which uses a dual reel cartridge tape drive and is similar to Sony's 8 mm videotape products and Exabyte's 8 mm data tape products. The second product is SAIT ½ inch form which used a single reel cartridge and was similar to DLT and LTO. Several generations of AIT technology are backwards and forward compatible with each other. This is one of the outstanding features of AIT technology.
Let us take a small peek in to many generations of AIT technology developed.
AIT 1: Originally, AIT 1 specification supported 25 GB of uncompressed data storage with a data transfer speed of nearly 3 MB per second. By extending the tape drive’s length, the data storage was improved in modified versions. AIT 1 was further developed to achieve speeds of 4 MB per second and also 6 MB per second and was called AIT Turbo. An economic version named AIT E Turbo was released with storage spaces of about 40 GB. AIT’s main competitor was DDS technology which was also one of the widely popular Tape Drive storage technologies.
AIT 2: The capacity and the speeds were doubled when compared to AIT 1. A new technology called WORM was introduced which meant Write once Read many. The turbo variant of AIT 2 had double the speed of AIT 2 and about 50 per cent more storage space.
AIT 3: This had double the capacity and data transfer speeds of AIT 2. The Ex version has 50 % more space and 100 % more speed than AIT 3.
AIT 4: Again, the capacity and data transfer speeds were doubled when compared to AIT 3. Different chemical composition was used for the tape for improvement in performance. This generation of AIT is not compatible with the previous ones.
AIT 5: The same double the capacity and speed factor of Sony’s AIT is repeated. This was the last generation of AIT.
By: Sandeep Mahanthi
Let us take a small peek in to many generations of AIT technology developed.
AIT 1: Originally, AIT 1 specification supported 25 GB of uncompressed data storage with a data transfer speed of nearly 3 MB per second. By extending the tape drive’s length, the data storage was improved in modified versions. AIT 1 was further developed to achieve speeds of 4 MB per second and also 6 MB per second and was called AIT Turbo. An economic version named AIT E Turbo was released with storage spaces of about 40 GB. AIT’s main competitor was DDS technology which was also one of the widely popular Tape Drive storage technologies.
AIT 2: The capacity and the speeds were doubled when compared to AIT 1. A new technology called WORM was introduced which meant Write once Read many. The turbo variant of AIT 2 had double the speed of AIT 2 and about 50 per cent more storage space.
AIT 3: This had double the capacity and data transfer speeds of AIT 2. The Ex version has 50 % more space and 100 % more speed than AIT 3.
AIT 4: Again, the capacity and data transfer speeds were doubled when compared to AIT 3. Different chemical composition was used for the tape for improvement in performance. This generation of AIT is not compatible with the previous ones.
AIT 5: The same double the capacity and speed factor of Sony’s AIT is repeated. This was the last generation of AIT.
By: Sandeep Mahanthi
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