RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks. RAID is a set of one or more hard disk drives put in place usually by the administrators of a computer system, usually in a server environment. It is important to remember that hard disk drives are moving parts, and like any other moving part they will wear and tear and malfunction. Typically a hard disk can last from 4-10 years depending on its usage. Of course because of the unknown life span of a hard disk it is important that the data stored on it is protected in some way because as soon as a hard disk fails, it becomes increasingly difficult to retrieve that data.

The cost in the 80s and 90s of hard disks was considerably high which makes it hard to explain why the word Inexpensive appears in the acronym “RAID”. However for large organisations who can lose thousands of pounds for every minute or hour that a computer server is not working happily spent money buying extra hard disks to form this RAID system. More recently though the cost of computer hardware has reduced dramatically making a RAID system viable for even small to medium sized enterprises.

There are a few ways of deploying a RAID system on to a server, and they are all put in place for practical purposes. The main two RAID deployments used are called Striped and Mirrored, also referred to as RAID 0 (pronounced “RAID zero”) and RAID 1. A Striped RAID system means that the capacities of all the hard disks are amalgamated to create a larger hard disk totalling the capacities of all the hard disks in that RAID. This of course serves no practical purpose with regards to backing up data, as if one of the hard disk fails the whole RAID is lost. Another backup solution would need to be in place, but that suits some organisations.

A Mirrored RAID system means that two or more hard disks are exact copies of one another, and should one of them fail therefore an exact copy of the data is available to administrators on one of the other hard disks in the RAID.

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