RAID: High-Performance, Reliable Secondary Storage

Peter M. Chen
Computer Science and Engineering Division
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
1301 Beal Avenue
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122
Edward K. Lee
DEC Systems Research Center
130 Lytton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301-1044
Garth A. Gibson
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891
Randy H. Katz
Computer Science Division
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
571 Evans Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
David A. Patterson
Computer Science Division
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
571 Evans Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720

Abstract: Disk arrays were proposed in the 1980s as a way to use parallelism between multiple disks to improve aggregate I/O performance. Today they appear in the product lines of most major computer manufacturers. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of disk arrays and provides a framework in which to organize current and future work. The paper first introduces disk technology and reviews the driving forces that have popularized disk arrays: performance and reliability. It then discusses the two architectural techniques used in disk arrays: striping across multiple disks to improve performance and redundancy to improve reliability. Next, the paper describes seven disk array architectures, called RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks) levels 0-6 and compares their performance, cost, and reliability. It goes on to discuss advanced research and implementation topics such as refining the basic RAID levels to improve performance and designing algorithms to maintain data consistency. Last, the paper describes five disk array prototypes or products and discusses future opportunities for research. The paper includes an annotated bibliography of disk array-related literature.
Content indicators: disk array, RAID, parallel I/O, storage, striping, redundancy

submitted to ACM Computing Surveys