Linux Intermediate

What is RAID?

Redundant Array of Independent Disks — a technology combining multiple physical drives into a single unit for performance, redundancy, or both.

RAID configurations protect against disk failures and improve performance. RAID 0 (striping) splits data across disks for speed but no redundancy. RAID 1 (mirroring) duplicates data on two disks for redundancy. RAID 5 uses striping with distributed parity, requiring minimum 3 disks and tolerating one failure. RAID 6 adds double parity for two-disk failure tolerance. RAID 10 combines mirroring and striping for both speed and redundancy. Linux supports software RAID through mdadm. RAID is not a backup replacement — it protects against hardware failure, not data corruption, accidental deletion, or ransomware.

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