h4. [Using RAID 6 for Increased Reliability and Performance !Main^download.gif!|http://mapping.sun.com/profile/offer.jsp?id=198]
*by Said A. Syed{*}{excerpt}
February 2009{excerpt}
Many business applications requiring high availability, reliability, and performance have historically chosen either RAID 5 or RAID 1+01 technology for their data storage needs. While both of these RAID algorithms provide increased data availability, they are not without certain disadvantages. For example, disk groups using RAID 5 are only able to sustain a single drive failure. And disk groups using RAID 1+0 algorithms must use 50 percent of the available storage capacity for mirroring. These disadvantages are exacerbated as disk drive capacity increases. With larger disks, the RAID 1+0 implementation becomes increasingly costly. And as number and size of disks increase, the risk of a disk error also increases making RAID 5 disk groups inherently less reliable.
RAID 6, a RAID algorithm that is recently gaining popularity, helps solve these problems. By using dual parity calculations, a RAID 6 disk group can tolerate two concurrent disk failures. Sun™ Storage 2500 series, 6140, 6580, and 6780 arrays using RAID 6 protection are an ideal solution to meet the needs of applications requiring highly available, high-performance data storage.
h4. Contents
* Sun's RAID 6 Solution: Reliability, Performance, Economy
* Disk Failure Rates, Reliability Needs Promote RAID 6 Usage
* RAID 6 Implementation
* Best Practices for Implementing RAID 6
* Conclusions
* About the Author
* Acknowledgements
* References
* Ordering Sun Documents
* Accessing Sun Documentation Online
{panel:title=About the Authors|borderStyle=solid|titleBGColor=#F8D583|bgColor=white}
Said A. Syed has over 14 years of industry experience, including over 8 years with Sun. Said started with Sun as a System Support Engineer in Chicago supporting high-end and mid-range servers and Sun storage products. Said joined Sun's Storage Product Technical Support group in 2004 as the Sun Support Services global lead for Brocade SAN products. In this position, Said managed the Sun Support Services relationship with Brocade Support Services directly and supported world-wide Sun customers on high visibility, high severity escalations involving SAN infrastructure products and Sun's high-end and low-cost storage products, the Sun Storage 3000 and 9000 series arrays. In 2008, Said was promoted to Staff Engineer role within Sun's NPI and OEM array engineering group and is currently chartered with gaining in-depth understanding of how virtualization applications such as VMware ESX server, the Sun xVM platform, Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization, Sun Logical Domains (LDoms), Solaris™ Containers, Cloud Computing, and other similar applications interact with Sun's modular and high-end storage arrays, the Sun Storage 2500, 6000 and 9000 series arrays.
{panel}
{panel:title=Acknowledgments|borderStyle=solid|titleBGColor=#F8D583|bgColor=white}
The author would like to thank Andrew Ness, a Staff Engineer within the NPI and OEM array engineering group at Sun, for reviewing technical details outlined in this document for accuracy. Thanks also to Michael Jeffries for reviewing the document for technical content, flow and verbiage. Further more, the author would like to extend his thanks to the Sun BluePrints team for assisting in technical writing, final review and publication.
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*by Said A. Syed{*}{excerpt}
February 2009{excerpt}
Many business applications requiring high availability, reliability, and performance have historically chosen either RAID 5 or RAID 1+01 technology for their data storage needs. While both of these RAID algorithms provide increased data availability, they are not without certain disadvantages. For example, disk groups using RAID 5 are only able to sustain a single drive failure. And disk groups using RAID 1+0 algorithms must use 50 percent of the available storage capacity for mirroring. These disadvantages are exacerbated as disk drive capacity increases. With larger disks, the RAID 1+0 implementation becomes increasingly costly. And as number and size of disks increase, the risk of a disk error also increases making RAID 5 disk groups inherently less reliable.
RAID 6, a RAID algorithm that is recently gaining popularity, helps solve these problems. By using dual parity calculations, a RAID 6 disk group can tolerate two concurrent disk failures. Sun™ Storage 2500 series, 6140, 6580, and 6780 arrays using RAID 6 protection are an ideal solution to meet the needs of applications requiring highly available, high-performance data storage.
h4. Contents
* Sun's RAID 6 Solution: Reliability, Performance, Economy
* Disk Failure Rates, Reliability Needs Promote RAID 6 Usage
* RAID 6 Implementation
* Best Practices for Implementing RAID 6
* Conclusions
* About the Author
* Acknowledgements
* References
* Ordering Sun Documents
* Accessing Sun Documentation Online
{panel:title=About the Authors|borderStyle=solid|titleBGColor=#F8D583|bgColor=white}
Said A. Syed has over 14 years of industry experience, including over 8 years with Sun. Said started with Sun as a System Support Engineer in Chicago supporting high-end and mid-range servers and Sun storage products. Said joined Sun's Storage Product Technical Support group in 2004 as the Sun Support Services global lead for Brocade SAN products. In this position, Said managed the Sun Support Services relationship with Brocade Support Services directly and supported world-wide Sun customers on high visibility, high severity escalations involving SAN infrastructure products and Sun's high-end and low-cost storage products, the Sun Storage 3000 and 9000 series arrays. In 2008, Said was promoted to Staff Engineer role within Sun's NPI and OEM array engineering group and is currently chartered with gaining in-depth understanding of how virtualization applications such as VMware ESX server, the Sun xVM platform, Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization, Sun Logical Domains (LDoms), Solaris™ Containers, Cloud Computing, and other similar applications interact with Sun's modular and high-end storage arrays, the Sun Storage 2500, 6000 and 9000 series arrays.
{panel}
{panel:title=Acknowledgments|borderStyle=solid|titleBGColor=#F8D583|bgColor=white}
The author would like to thank Andrew Ness, a Staff Engineer within the NPI and OEM array engineering group at Sun, for reviewing technical details outlined in this document for accuracy. Thanks also to Michael Jeffries for reviewing the document for technical content, flow and verbiage. Further more, the author would like to extend his thanks to the Sun BluePrints team for assisting in technical writing, final review and publication.
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