Striping
Striping is the automated process of writing data across multiple drives simulteneously. Striping is used to increase the performance of disk reads.
When using striping, if you write a 5GB file across 5 drives, 1GB of data is written to each drive. Parallel reading of data from multiple disks can have a significant positive impact on performance, because the physical disk drive is most often the performance bottleneck.
Striping is used in RAID Level 0.
If one drive in a striped set fails, all of the data in the stripe set is lost. The data must be restored from backup. Because of this, striping is often combined with the use of parity (RAID 5) or mirroring (RAID 0+1).
Performance Problems Cause by Striping
Striping, when combined with parity, can have a negative performance impact on write operations. This is because some of the data used to calculate parity may be stored on the disk already. This means that the process to write to the array is:
- Read the existing data
- Calculate the parity
- Write the new parity
- Write the new data
|
|
- RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks and it basically involves combining two or more drives together to improve the performance and the fault tolerance. Combining two or more drives together also offers improved reliability and larger data volume sizes. RAID distributes the data across several disks but the operating system considers this array [...]...
- Mirroring
Mirroring is the automated process of writing data to two drives simultaneously. Mirroring is used to provide redundancy, backup, multiple concurrent accesses and uninterrupted accessibility. If one drive fails, the redundant drive will continue to store the data and provide access to it. The failed drive can then be replaced and the drive set can [...]...
- Exchange Server 2003 Data Storage and Management
Understanding Exchange Server 2003 Data Storage Exchange Server 2003 uses the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database structure to store data. Data can be stored separately for messages and for transactions: Messages are stored in.edb and .stm database files. Database files also contain a number of other components, including: Rules Folders Attachments Indexes Transactions are stored [...]...
- Hard Drive
A hard drive, also known hard disk or hard disk drive, is a non-volatile data storage device. Technically, hard drives and hard disks are not the same since hard drives consist of multiple hard platters, the hard disk reader and writer head, the hard drive motor, and the drive electronics. On the other hand, a [...]...
- Bad Sector
A sector is a small area on the surface of a hard drive or floppy disk. Hard drives usually have several platters. The platters are the discs that are covered with magnetic material, which is used to hold data. Floppy disk drives contain only one platter. Platters are divided into a set of concentric rings [...]...