What's the Best RAID Solution for Businesses?

Combining multiple hard disk drives into a single unit, RAID (or redundant array of independent disks) offers the perfect storage solution for any business. But which RAID level is right for you?

The basic RAID level is RAID 0, where data is striped across two or more hard disk drives, giving the user increased speed and performance, as well as increased capacity. Because multiple heads are working together, read/write speeds are faster. The downside is, if one drive in the array fails, your data is lost, and you’ll need to consult a professional RAID data recovery specialist. To add to the risk, if all drives in the array are from the same batch, they could fail around the same time, increasing the likelihood of your data becoming permanently lost.

RAID 1 – or disk mirroring – duplicates your data across two or more drives, and offers high levels of performance and protection against data loss. While read speeds are faster due to multiple heads being in operation at once, write speeds are slower, as data has to be written to each drive in the array. But because each drive in the array stores the same data, if one drive fails, the others keep working. The downside of RAID 1 is that you only have the storage capacity of one hard disk drive. Plus, RAID 1 doesn’t protect against a situation where all drives in the array are damaged, like in a fire or flood.

RAID offers the best of both worlds, essentially – increased speed, capacity and redundancy. For a RAID 5 array, you’ll need at least three drives, with one used to store parity data to rebuild the array in the event of a failure. RAID 5 is an incredibly popular level with businesses, and it’s not uncommon to see arrays with seven or more hard disk drives. Seems like the perfect solution, right? Well, in spite of all the positives, RAID 5 isn’t completely fail proof, and even a well-maintained array can fail. RAID 5 isn’t a logical backup, and shouldn’t be used as a substitute for one; there’s no protection from human error or malware, not to mention natural disaster.

Overall, RAID 5 offers the best solution for businesses, but if your business is small or you need to cut costs, RAID 1 is a good substitute. Our RAID data recovery team have worked with all these RAID levels, and have the knowledge, expertise and skills to get your data back, in the event that you lose it. We can provide a free evaluation and file listing within 48 hours of your RAID array arriving into the data recovery lab.

RAID Data Recovery