Maximizing Performance
Keywords: Nytro SW UG

> Maximizing Performance

> A RAID disk subsystem improves I/O performance. The RAID drive group appears to the host computer as a single storage unit or as multiple virtual units. I/O is faster because drives can be accessed simultaneously. The following table describes the performance for each RAID level.

> Table 6. RAID Levels and Performance

> RAID Level | Performance
> 0 | RAID 0 (striping) offers excellent performance. RAID 0 breaks up data into smaller blocks and then writes a block to each drive in the drive group. Disk striping writes data across multiple drives instead of just one drive. It involves partitioning each drive storage space into stripes that can vary in size from 8 KB to 1024 KB. These stripes are interleaved in a repeated sequential manner. Disk striping enhances performance because multiple drives are accessed simultaneously.
> 1 | With RAID 1 (mirroring), each drive in the system must be duplicated, which requires more time and resources than striping. Performance is impaired during drive rebuilds.
> 5 | RAID 5 provides high data throughput, especially for large files. Use this RAID level for any application that requires high read request rates, but low write request rates, such as transaction processing applications, because each drive can read and write independently. Because each drive contains both data and parity, numerous writes can take place concurrently. In addition, robust caching algorithms and hardware-based exclusive-or assist make RAID 5 performance exceptional in many different environments. Parity generation can slow the write process, making write performance significantly lower for RAID 5 than for RAID 0 or RAID 1. Drive performance is reduced when a drive is being rebuilt. Clustering can also reduce drive performance. Environments with few processes do not perform as well because the RAID overhead is not offset by the performance gains in handling simultaneous processes.
> 10 | RAID 10 works best for data storage that need the enhanced I/O performance of RAID 0 (striped drive groups), which provides high data transfer rates. Spanning increases the capacity of the virtual drive and improves performance by doubling the number of spindles. The system performance improves as the number of spans increases. (The maximum number of spans is 8.) As the storage space in the spans is filled, the system stripes data over fewer and fewer spans, and RAID performance degrades to that of a RAID 1 or RAID 5 drive group.

DB15-001059-00-April 2013
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