RAID

Jokingly termed the "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks" by researchers in the 1980s, the acronym RAID was later modified to stand for "Redundant Array of Independent Disks". It is a method of virtualization that combines multiple disks into a single storage unit to ensure availability and achieve redundancy. Data is stored across multiple devices to prevent the failure of any one disk from destroying the information. Hardware or software solutions are used to manage the data that's distributed across multiple devices.

RAID has become a key feature in many modern storage devices; most notably, in storage servers that are part of a computing cluster that handles a lot of data. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) categorizes RAID into different levels to specify which storage techniques are being used; the most ubiquitous RAID types are 1, 3, 5, and 6. A higher level generally represents greater protection against data errors and device failures. Data center engineers usually employ a mix of RAID levels and other error protection technologies to ensure data redundancy and improve efficiency.

Whether you are running a data center, server farm, or server room, the protection of your data—not to mention fast and efficient access to it—are of paramount importance. RAID has become a widely accepted method of improving data security while enhancing server performance. New solutions are being proposed all the time to further enhance the performance of RAID so it can contribute to the development of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and other cutting-edge inventions.

GIGABYTE, an industry-leading brand of server solutions, is renowned for its complete product line of S-Series Storage Servers, which support the commonly used RAID types. GIGABYTE also works closely with renowned RAID solution providers to ensure its servers benefit from the latest technology. For example, GIGABYTE has incorporated GRAID Technology's GRAID SupremeRAID™, a high-speed data protection solution designed especially for NVMe SSDs, into GIGABYTE R282-Z9G. The innovative RAID solution makes over 100GB/s of throughput possible for workloads in HPC, 4K/8K video editing, high-frequency trading, online transaction processing, and database processing. This level of throughput is required of storage solutions in the modern age of data processing.