Where is RAID commonly used?

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Where is RAID commonly used

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a data storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit. RAID is used to provide fault tolerance and improve performance for storage systems. Some of the most common places where RAID is used include:

Data Centers

RAID is ubiquitous in data centers and server farms. The massive amounts of data stored and accessed by data centers requires high performance, high availability storage systems. RAID allows data centers to achieve the speed, capacity, and reliability needed for critical business applications. Specific uses include:

  • Enterprise database servers – Databases like Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, etc rely on RAID to provide fast data access and protection against disk failures.
  • Virtual machine hosts – Hypervisors like VMware use RAID to store virtual machine images and data.
  • File servers – RAID enables fast file transfers and storage consolidation through technologies like NAS and SAN.
  • High performance computing clusters – Scientific computing applications demand fast scratch space and checkpoint/restart capabilities provided by RAID.

The most common RAID levels used in data centers are RAID 1, 5, 6, and 10. Large data centers may use advanced RAID implementations like triple parity RAID-TP or erasure coding RAID for maximum resilience.

Web Servers

Websites rely on web servers to deliver content fast and continuously. Web servers use RAID to enable uninterrupted access to web pages, images, applications, and databases:

  • Application servers – Common web frameworks like ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails depend on RAID protected disks for hosting web apps.
  • Media servers – Video streaming and large file downloads are accelerated using RAID storage backends.
  • Web caching – Content delivery networks (CDNs) use RAID to provide caching and replication for high-traffic sites.
  • Load balancing – By spreading load across an array of web servers, access bottlenecks are reduced.

RAID 1 mirroring is popular for smaller web servers, while RAID 5 or 6 provides economies of scale for larger arrays. Multiple drive failures can be tolerated thanks to hot-spares and quick-rebuild capabilities.

Transactional Databases

Databases providing transactional integrity rely on RAID for performance and redundancy:

  • OLTP databases – Online transaction processing (OLTP) systems like banking, ERP, ecommerce use RAID to fulfill demanding I/O requirements.
  • Document databases – NoSQL systems like MongoDB replicate and shard data across RAID-based nodes.
  • Business analytics – Data warehousing and business intelligence queries leverage large, parallel RAID arrays.
  • Distributed databases – Cloud databases like Amazon RDS use RAID across storage nodes for high availability.

Latency-sensitive transactional workloads take advantage of RAID 0 striping. Fault tolerance is achieved using parity-based RAID 5/6 or mirrored RAID 1 arrays. Multi-drive failure protection offered by RAID 6 is often mandated for mission critical data.

File and Application Servers

General purpose file and application servers for office environments also employ RAID:

  • Departmental servers – Groups like marketing, finance, HR etc use RAID protected servers for shared files, databases and applications.
  • Email servers – Mailboxes and email databases are stored on RAID arrays to enable continuous access.
  • Print servers – Centralized print queues and spooling benefits from the performance and reliability of RAID storage.
  • Application servers – Line of business apps for ERP, CRM, CAD etc are hosted on RAID equipped servers.

Virtualized application and file servers can take advantage of RAID implemented in the hypervisor software layer. Shared storage networks like SAN and NAS typically use RAID 6 arrays due to large drive capacities. Desktop RAID controllers are also common for small workgroups.

Personal Computers

Although less critical than enterprise storage, RAID is still utilized extensively in consumer PCs:

  • Gaming PCs – High performance RAID 0 improves frame rates and access times for games.
  • Creative professionals – Video production and graphics design needs fast working storage that RAID provides.
  • SOHO users – RAID 1 mirroring offers data protection for home offices and small businesses.
  • Enthusiasts – Advanced users employ RAID for increased computing performance.

Onboard RAID controllers provided on server-grade motherboards are popular for high-end gaming rigs. External direct attached RAID enclosures are used by creative pros. Consumer motherboards include simple RAID 1 capabilities via Intel RST or AMD RAXIde software.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Dedicated NAS appliances serve critical storage needs for businesses, organizations and home users:

  • Media storage – Movies, photos, music and other personal media files are stored on NAS RAID arrays in homes.
  • Backups – Businesses rely on NAS for daily backups, snapshots and redundancy.
  • Shared storage – Groups collaborate using centralized NAS storage accessed over the network.
  • Home office – SOHO users utilize NAS for file sharing, data protection and remote access.

Most NAS systems are pre-configured with RAID 5 or 6 for optimal storage capacity and single disk fault tolerance. Some NAS models offer dual redundancy with RAID 1+0 mirroring plus striping.

Surveillance Systems

Video surveillance systems demand high-capacity, fault-tolerant storage with good sequential I/O performance that RAID delivers:

  • CCTV – Camera footage from businesses, public places and transportation hubs are recorded using RAID arrays.
  • Body cameras – Police and private security body cameras rely on onsite or cloud hosted RAID storage.
  • Dash cams – Traffic stops, collisions and other road incidents are captured using in-car camera RAID arrays.
  • Home security – Residential camera systems can use external NAS RAID storage for saving locally recorded video.

Large surveillance deployments use big RAID 6 arrays to consolidate storage and provide redundancy. Writes are optimized by using large block sizes. Surveillance-optimized versions of RAID scale efficiently for mega-camera rollouts.

Broadcasting

Broadcasting organizations utilize RAID extensively within their studios and datacenters:

  • Production workflows – Video editing workstations stream multiple HD streams using high speed RAID storage.
  • Playout servers – On-air program feeds are read from fast, redundant RAID arrays.
  • Archives – Historical recordings are preserved and accessed using large, shared RAID libraries.
  • Post production – Completing video projects requires substantial short-term storage with RAID protection.

Specialized video editing RAID controllers accelerate throughput by optimizing parity calculations and drive access. Dense storage capacities help consolidate archives. Rapid rebuild times minimize on-air disruption if a drive fails.

Cloud Storage

Public cloud storage services utilize extensive RAID implementations behind the scenes:

  • Object storage – Services like Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage rely on RAID for scalability and reliability.
  • Virtual disks – Cloud VMs access virtualized RAID storage for OS, applications, and data.
  • Backups – Cloud backup services use RAID arrays for quick rebuilding after drive swaps.
  • Big data – MapReduce workflows succeed using parallel access across vast RAID volumes.

Multi-petabyte cloud storage installations utilize erasure coding RAID that maximizes fault tolerance for massive drive counts. Latency is reduced using RAID cache optimization and all-flash arrays.

High Performance Computing (HPC)

Scientific HPC clusters use RAID to deliver fast access to tremendous amounts of research data:

  • Modeling and simulation – Large datasets feed parallel simulations running on clustered servers with RAID storage backends.
  • Data analysis – Experiments and observational data is aggregated, mined, and analyzed using RAID equipped servers.
  • Checkpoints – Interim cluster job state is checkpointed to RAID protected storage pools.
  • Scratch space – High throughput temporary storage is fulfilled using high speed RAID subsystems.

Extensive caching and high speed interconnects reduce the impact of RAID computational overhead for HPC workloads. Virtualized RAID volumes are allocated efficiently thanks to thin provisioning.

Virtualized Environments

Virtual server and desktop environments are underpinned by shared RAID storage resources:

  • Hypervisors – Hypervisors like VMware ESXi install and run from RAID protected disks.
  • Virtual disks – Virtual machine images and data are served from high capacity RAID arrays.
  • Virtual SAN – Software-defined storage shares physical RAID arrays across virtualized nodes.
  • Virtual desktops – Hosted desktop solutions centralize user data storage using backend RAID resources.

Thin provisioning and space efficient virtual disk formats optimize utilization of pooled RAID arrays. Live migration capabilities take advantage of flexible network attached RAID storage.

Containers and Kubernetes

Container orchestration platforms rely on robust RAID storage deployments:

  • Node OS – Container host operating systems run from mirrored or parity based RAID volumes.
  • Container storage – Persistent container volumes reside on shared, network attached RAID storage.
  • Orchestrator – Kubernetes masters and etcd databases utilize RAID protected disks.
  • Registries – Container registries benefit from versioned, replicated storage capabilities of RAID.

Thin provisioning and deduplication maximizes RAID capacity utilization for large container volumes. Container storage interface (CSI) plugins simplify storage management across hardware RAID resources.

Telecommunications

High traffic telecom systems need RAID’s speed, fault tolerance, and high availability:

  • Switching – Call routing and relay systems use internal RAID to prevent interruption of service.
  • Transmission – Fiber optic, copper, microwave and satellite links use RAID for signal conversion and multiplexing.
  • Billing – Subscriber billing data is efficiently accessed from high capacity RAID arrays.
  • Logging – Diagnostics, metrics, tracing and logs are aggregated on redundant storage.

Carrier grade RAID systems are tuned for massive concurrency and throughput required in service provider networks. Dense rackmount servers have RAID protection built into the chassis.

Mail Servers

High volume mail systems rely on RAID to deliver messages without interruption:

  • MTAs – Message transfer agents like Sendmail and Postfix spool messages to RAID arrays.
  • Mailboxes – User inboxes reside on shared RAID storage with redundancy.
  • Spam filters – Incoming messages screened by spam blocking software hosted on RAID.
  • Distribution lists – Mailing lists with thousands of recipients require performant RAID backends.

Large optical RAID libraries store years of archived messages online for compliance. RAID data protection allows rebuilding of indices and preventing mail routing failures.

Directory Services

Centralized directory servers benefit greatly from RAID enhancements:

  • Domains – Domain controllers store account database, policies, and sysvol on mirrored or parity RAID.
  • LDAP – Directory query performance accelerated by striped RAID configurations.
  • DNS – Fast zone transfers via striped RAID over many spindles.
  • DHCP – Rapid updates to DHCP lease database using RAID disks.

Authoritative domain data is protected against corruption and disk events via RAID. Live domain controller failover relies on synchronized redundant storage.

Version Control Systems

Source code repositories use RAID storage for enhanced availability and massive capacity:

  • Git – Distributed repo shards stored on backend SAN, NAS or DAS RAID arrays.
  • Subversion – Replicated commit logs and filesystem revisions stored on mirrored RAID.
  • Mercurial – Multiple branch copies maintained using high capacity RAID.
  • CVS – Historical changes and checkpoint updates written to redundant RAID resources.

Repository server performance benchmarks depend on consistently fast RAID volumes. Huge codebases and long revision histories require petabyte-scale RAID installations.

Conclusion

RAID’s flexibility makes it one of the most universally deployed data storage technologies among a wide variety of computing platforms, from enterprise datacenters to personal PCs. Some common threads for RAID usage include:

  • Critical business systems demand high availability and reliability provided by RAID.
  • Performance sensitive applications use RAID to speed up storage.
  • Large storage capacity requirements are addressed by pooling RAID arrays.
  • Shared storage environments rely on fault tolerant RAID configurations.

Continuing innovations in RAID algorithms, software implementations, and tiered architectures expand the technology’s usefulness for future applications. With demands for data reliability and performance showing no signs of abating, RAID will remain an essential component of computing infrastructure for the foreseeable future.