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Commonly confused · Systems & Data Center

RAID 0 vs RAID 1 vs RAID 5: What's the Difference?

RAID 0 stripes data across disks for speed with no redundancy. RAID 1 mirrors identical data to two disks for redundancy. RAID 5 stripes data with distributed parity across three or more disks, surviving one disk failure while using capacity efficiently.

RAID 0 (Striping)

Full definition
vs

RAID 1 (Mirroring)

Full definition
vs

RAID 5 (Striping with Parity)

Full definition
RAID 0RAID 1RAID 5
Minimum disks223
Fault toleranceNone; any failure loses all dataSurvives one disk failureSurvives one disk failure
Usable capacity100% of total50% of totalTotal minus one disk
Read performanceExcellentGoodGood
Write performanceExcellentLike a single diskSlower due to parity calculation
Typical useScratch space, video editing cachesOS boot drivesFile servers, general storage
Remember it

RAID 0 has zero redundancy; RAID 1 is one copy of everything; RAID 5 adds parity for one failure.

Exam tip

Expect capacity calculations (four 2 TB disks in RAID 5 give 6 TB usable) and minimum-disk questions. Remember RAID is not a backup, and RAID 10 (1+0) needs four disks for mirroring plus striping.

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