RAID LEVEL 10 (RAID 1+0): RAID 0 Array of Mirrors

Server
Mirroring
Mirroring
Disk 0
Disk 1
Disk 2
Disk 3
A
B
C
A0
A0
A1
A1
B0
B0
B1
B1
C0
C0
C1
C1
Raid Controller

Click on the diagram to see Raid 10 in action

RAID 10, also known as RAID 1+0, is the combination of RAID 1 and RAID 0 in a single system. So, it is a stripe of mirrors.
RAID 10 requires at least 4 drives to implement.

Characteristics & Advantages

  • High Read and Write rates achieved by striping RAID 1 mirrored segments
  • RAID 10 has the same fault tolerance and overhead as RAID level 1, due to mirroring.
  • During disk failure, the rebuild time is very fast since all needed is copying all the data from the surviving mirror to a new drive.
  • Under certain circumstances, RAID 10 array can sustain multiple simultaneous drive failures

Disadvantages

  • As half of the storage capacity goes to mirroring, RAID 10 is a very expensive way to achieve redundancy
  • Limited scalability

Recommended Applications

  • Database Servers
  • Email Servers
  • Web Servers
  • Servers that require high performance and fault tolerance