RAID Levels and Data Redundancy: Which Level Provides the Best Protection?

Which RAID level provides the best protection against data loss with the failure of a single drive?

1) RAID 0

2) RAID 1

3) RAID 5

4) RAID 10

Final answer:

Final answer:

Among the RAID levels listed, RAID 0 will lose all data if a single drive fails because it does not provide data redundancy. In contrast, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 all provide data redundancy and can withstand the failure of a single drive without losing any data.

In the realm of data storage, RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is used to ensure data redundancy and enhance performance. Among the four RAID levels listed, the RAID level that will result in data loss with the failure of only a single drive is RAID 0.

RAID 0 is based on data striping, where data is split into blocks that get written across all the drives in the array. It increases performance as it allows multiple drives to read and write data simultaneously. However, it provides no redundancy. Therefore, if any drive fails, all data will be lost as it is not duplicated on any other drive.

On the other hand, RAID 1 operates on the principle of data mirroring. Every piece of data is written on two drives simultaneously, so even if one drive fails, the other one still contains all the data. RAID 5 and RAID 10 both use a combination of the above methods and can survive a single hard drive failure without losing any data.