What is RAID in DBMS, 7 Levels with Advantages and Methods: RAID, fully abbreviated as Redundant Array of Independent Disk uses different small and low-cost drives to be transformed into a single storage media. It is performed to enhance fault tolerance and improve disk reliability in the database management system. There are many issues with single disk storage, ranging from no backup disk to low performance. However, the availability of RAID assists in creating a single logical disk to operate the system.

Also See: File Organization in DBMS

What is RAID in DBMS, 7 Levels with Advantages and Methods

If you talk about the technological community on the internet, various queries related to this technology aren’t addressed correctly. This post will talk about RAID in DBMS with a proper explanation. Go through the article and understand what it is really about!

What are the different levels of RAID?

In DBMS, RAID is categorized into a variety of levels to ensure proper categorization. We have explained all of them in detail below:

  1. RAID 0

RAID 0 is a level of technology having a configuration for dividing data across multiple disks. It is done to make sure read-written can be performed at the same time. Also known as disk striping, it is known for improving the system’s overall speed to a greater level.

Advantages of RAID 0

  • It improves the performance by increasing bandwidth nearly four times.
  • There won’t be any sort of parity that ensures the complete capacity is improved for storage capacity.
  • It is easy to implement technology that costs very low to the users.
  1. Raid 1

Raid 1 is known as the process to mirror data as it is used for copying the data from one drive to another. If failure happens, there is 100% redundancy guaranteed to the system. In reality, nearly 50% of drive stores data, whereas the remaining half is used for mirroring the stored data.

Also See: Aggregation in DBMS

Advantages of Raid 1

  • The major benefit offered by this level of raid is fault tolerance. It means the automatic takeover happens if a failure of one disk happens.
  • The functioning of an array doesn’t stop in case of a disk failure.
  1. Raid 2

The raid that involves the process of bit-level stripping with the help of hamming code parity is called Raid 2. Here, every data bit in the word is stored on a different disk. On the other hand, a separate set of disks is used to store the ECC code of data words.

Advantages of Raid 2

  • The parity is stored in a designated drive.
  • The error can be detected with the help of hamming code.
  1. Raid 3

At this level, the system performs byte-level stripping using dedicated parity to store information partially in each disk. The drive can be accessed in case of failure, while data can be reconstructed from the other devices.

Also See: Metadata in DBMS

Advantages of Raid 3

  • The data regeneration can be easily done with the help of a parity drive.
  • It gives faster data transfer rates.
  1. Raid 4

In this type of level, the data is stripped at the blocks through different drives. It is partially stored on one drive to let the parity details get recovered after the failure of any particular drive.

Advantages of Raid 4

  • Allow the programmers to recover data at the failure of a single disk.
  • The Raid can be implemented using level 4 and level 5 at least three disks.
  1. Raid 5

The performance of RAID 0 is combined with the redundancy of Raid 1. However, it took nearly 1/3rd of the total usable capacity. The main motive of this level is to improve writing performance.

Advantages of Raid 5

  • It is a cost-effective method for increasing performance.
  • Randomly write performance gets better with Raid 5.
  1. Raid 6

The extension of RAID 5 has block-level stripping with two different parity bits. The programmers can survive two regular disk failures in Raid 6. Here, you will find at least four disks in the array, while there is an extra parity block stored on every desk.

Also See: Generalization in DBMS with Example

Advantages of Raid 6

  • The data is stripped before performing mirroring in this level of raid.
  • The drives are available in the multiple two in this level of the raid.

What are the major types of data storage methods in Raid?

There are many different data storage methods used in the array that we have mentioned below in detail:

  • Striping

The flow of data is divided into different blocks of a particular size, known as the block size. They are written through every RAID one by one and positively affect the performance.

  • Mirroring

There are identical copies of data saved on the different RAID members simultaneously in this type of storage method. The fault tolerance and system performance are greatly affected by this data storage method.

Also See: Specialization in DBMS

  • Parity

The striping and checksum techniques are used during this storage technique. There is a particular parity function calculated for the data blocks in the parity system.

Raid consists of a brilliant set of physical disk drives having an operating system that works as a single logical disk. The data is perfectly distributed through the various physical drives in the system. The parity information is stored by using the redundancy disk capacity.

The data can be recorded using partial information with the disk failure. If you have any questions regarding the raid in DBMS, please write about them in the comment section!

Sumit ThakurWhat Is DBMSWhat is RAID in DBMS, 7 Levels with Advantages and Methods: RAID, fully abbreviated as Redundant Array of Independent Disk uses different small and low-cost drives to be transformed into a single storage media. It is performed to enhance fault tolerance and improve disk reliability in the database management...Let's Define DBMS