Tutorial 4- What does RAID 1 do for you?

Look into a mirror and tell me what you see. Well you are looking at yourself and that is how RAID 1 works. According to Intel "A RAID 1 array contains two hard drives where the data between the two is mirrored in real time. Because all of the data is duplicated, the operating system treats the usable space of a RAID 1 array as the maximum size of one hard drive in the array."



Here is a image of RAID 1

So you are probably asking what does this means to you. Well have you ever had your hard drive crash and you lost all your data? How will you like to prevent this from happening again? RAID 1 has two hard drives that mirror each other. When one hard drive fails the other hard drive continues to contain your data. This gives you a chance to buy a new drive before the second drive fails and you lose all you data. According to Intel "The primary benefit of RAID 1 mirroring is that it provides good data reliability in the case of a single disk failure. When one disk drive fails, all data is immediately available on the other without any impact to the data integrity. In the case of a disk failure, the computer system will remain fully operational to ensure maximum productivity."

Maximum productivity means that your computer will read fast and you will not spend lots of time trying to find your data when one of the hard drives fail. Productivity is very important for business to make or increase profit. RAID 1 is great for fast performance and temporary usage. When looking for drives that are great with large amounts of data RAID 1 might not be exactly what you need. Consider what your most important need is before choosing one of the RAIDs.

Acknowledgements:

Pictures were created by Joel Acevedo for public use.
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa_raid/sb/cs-009338.htm?wapkw=(raid+1+mirroring)