Section 1 : Storage System

Data Protection: RAID

Chapter 3

EMC Proven Professional

The #1 Certification Program in the information storage and management industry

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Why RAID
o Performance limitation of disk drive o An individual drive has a certain life expectancy
o Measured in MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure)
o The more the number of HDDs in a storage array, the larger the probability for disk failure. For example:
o If the MTBF of a drive is 750,000 hours, and there are 100 drives in the array, then the MTBF of the array becomes 750,000 / 100, or 7,500 hours

o RAID was introduced to mitigate this problem o RAID provides:

o Increase capacity o Higher availability
o Increased performance
2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Chapter objectives
After completing this chapter, you will be able to: o Describe what is RAID and the needs it addresses

o Describe the concepts upon which RAID is built

o Define and compare RAID levels o Recommend the use of the common RAID levels based on performance and availability considerations o Explain factors impacting disk drive performance

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Array Components

Physical Array

Logical Array

RAID Controller

Hard Disks

Host RAID Array

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Implementations
o Hardware (usually a specialized disk controller card)
o Controls all drives attached to it o Array(s) appear to host operating system as a regular disk drive o Provided with administrative software

o Software
o Runs as part of the operating system o Performance is dependent on CPU workload o Does not support all RAID levels

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Levels
o 0 Striped array with no fault tolerance o 1 Disk mirroring

o Nested RAID (i.e., 1 + 0, 0 + 1, etc.)

o 3 Parallel access array with dedicated parity disk o 4 Striped array with independent disks and a dedicated parity disk o 5 Striped array with independent disks and distributed parity

o 6 Striped array with independent disks and dual distributed parity

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Data Organization: Striping

Stripe

Strip

Stripe

Strip 1

Strip 2

Strip 3

Stripe 1 Stripe 2
Strips
2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 0
o Data is distributed across the HDDs in the RAID set. o Allows multiple data to be read or written simultaneously, and therefore improves performance. o Does not provide data protection and availability in the event of disk failures.

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 0
0

1 5 9 RAID Controller

2 6 10
3 7 11

Host

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 1
o Data is stored on two different HDDs, yielding two copies of the same data.
o Provides availability.

o In the event of HDD failure, access to data is still available from the surviving HDD. o When the failed disk is replaced with a new one, data is automatically copied from the surviving disk to the new disk.
o Done automatically by RAID the controller.

o Disadvantage: The amount of storage capacity is twice the amount of data stored. o Mirroring is NOT the same as doing backup!
2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 1

Block 0 1

RAID Block 0 1 Controller

Host

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Nested RAID
o Combines the performance benefits of RAID 0 with the redundancy benefit of RAID 1. o RAID 0+1 Mirrored Stripe
o Data is striped across HDDs, then the entire stripe is mirrored. o If one drive fails, the entire stripe is faulted. o Rebuild operation requires data to be copied from each disk in the healthy stripe, causing increased load on the surviving disks.

o RAID 1+0 Striped Mirror

o Data is first mirrored, and then both copies are striped across multiple HDDs. o When a drive fails, data is still accessible from its mirror. o Rebuild operation only requires data to be copied from the surviving disk into the replacement disk.
2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Nested RAID 0+1 (Striping and Mirroring)

RAID 1

Block 0 Block 2 RAID Controller Block 1

Host RAID 0

Block 0 3 2 1

Block 3

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Nested RAID 0+1 (Striping and Mirroring)

RAID 1

Block 0 Block 2 RAID Controller Block 1

Host RAID 0

Block 0 Block 2

Block 1 Block 3

Block 3

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Nested RAID 1+0 (Mirroring and Striping)

RAID 0

Block 1 Block 3 RAID Controller Block 1

Host RAID 1

Block 2 0

Block 3

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Nested RAID 1+0 (Mirroring and Striping)

RAID 0

Block 0 Block 2 RAID Controller Block 0

Host RAID 1

Block 1 Block 3

Block 1 Block 3

Block 2

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Redundancy: Parity

0

4
1 6 5 9 RAID Controller

1 ?

Host

The middle drive fails: Parity calculation 4 + 6 + 1 + 7 = 18

3 7 7 11 0123 4 518 67

4 + 6 + ? + 7 = 18

? = 18 4 6 7
2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

?=1

Parity Disk

RAID 3 and RAID 4

o Stripes data for high performance and uses parity for improved fault tolerance. o One drive is dedicated for parity information. o If a drive files, data can be reconstructed using data in the parity drive.

o For RAID 3, data read / write is done across the entire stripe.
o Provide good bandwidth for large sequential data access such as video streaming.

o For RAID 4, data read/write can be independently on single disk.

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 3

Block 0 3 2 1

RAID0 Block Controller Block Parity1 Generated Block 2

Block 3 P0123

Host

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 5 and RAID 6

o RAID 5 is similar to RAID 4, except that the parity is distributed across all disks instead of stored on a dedicated disk.
o This overcomes the write bottleneck on the parity disk.

o RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5, except that it includes a second parity element to allow survival in the event of two disk failures.
o The probability for this to happen increases and the number of drives in the array increases. o Calculates both horizontal parity (as in RAID 5) and diagonal parity. o Has more write penalty than in RAID 5. o Rebuild operation may take longer than on RAID 5.

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID 5
Block 0 Block 4 Block 1 Block 5 Parity RAID4 Block 0 Generated Controller P4 05 16 27 3 Block 3
Host

Block 2
Block 6

Block 0 4

P4567 P0123 Block 7

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Comparison
RAID Min Disks Storage Efficiency % Cost Read Performance
Very good for both random and sequential read

Write Performance

100

Low

Very good

50 (n-1)*100/n where n= number of disks (n-1)*100/n where n= number of disks (n-2)*100/n where n= number of disks

High

Good Better than a single disk

Good Slower than a single disk, as every write must be committed to two disks Poor to fair for small random writes Good for large, sequential writes Fair for random write Slower due to parity overhead Fair to good for sequential writes Good for small, random writes (has write penalty)

Moderate

Good for random reads and very good for sequential reads Very good for random reads Good for sequential reads Very good for random reads Good for sequential reads

Moderate

Moderate but more than RAID 5

1+0 and 0+1

50

High

Very good

Good

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Impacts on Performance

RAID Controller

Ep new
Ep new

Ep old
Ep old

2 XOR

E4 old

+
E4 old

E4 new
E4 new

P0

D1

D2

D3

D4

o Small (less than element size) write on RAID 3 & 5

o Ep = E1 + E2 + E3 + E4 (XOR operations)

o If parity is valid, then: Ep new = Ep old E4 old + E4 new (XOR operations)

o 2 disk reads and 2 disk writes

o Parity Vs Mirroring
o Reading, calculating and writing parity segment introduces penalty to every write operation o Parity RAID penalty manifests due to slower cache flushes o Increased load in writes can cause contention and can cause slower read response times
2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

RAID Penalty Exercise

o Total IOPS at peak workload is 1200 o Read/Write ratio 2:1

o Calculate IOPS requirement at peak activity for

o RAID 1/0 o RAID 5

Additional Task Discuss impact of sequential & Random I/O in different RAID Configuration

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Hot Spares

RAID Controller

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Chapter Summary
Key points covered in this chapter: o What RAID is and the needs it addresses

o The concepts upon which RAID is built

o Some commonly implemented RAID levels

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

#1 IT company

For more information visit

2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

http://education.EMC.com