RAID 5 - Block-level data striping with distributed parity. A Good Compromise

RAID 5 stripes data across multiple disks. RAID 5, however, adds a parity check bit to the data. This slightly reduces available disk capacity, but it also means that the RAID array continues to function if a single disk fails. In the event of a disk failure, you simply replace the failed disk and keep going.

The tradeoffs with RAID 5 are a small performance penalty in write operations and a slight decrease in usabable storage space.

• Minimum number of drives: 3
• Strengths: Best cost/performance for transaction-oriented networks; Very high performance, very high data protection; Supports multiple simultaneous reads and writes; Can also be optimized for large, sequential requests.
• Weaknesses: Write performance is slower than RAID 0 or RAID 1.

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