RAID 6 Logical Drives
A RAID 6 logical drive—also known as dual drive failure protection—is similar to a RAID 5 logical drive
because it uses data striping and parity data to provide redundancy. However, RAID 6 logical drives
include two independent sets of parity data instead of one. Both sets of parity data are striped separately
across all disk drives in the logical drive.
RAID 6 logical drives provide extra protection for your data because they can recover from two
simultaneous disk drive failures. However, the extra parity calculation slows performance (compared
to RAID 5 logical drives).
RAID 6 logical drives must be built from at least four disk drives. Maximum stripe size depends on the
number of disk drives in the logical drive.
Unused Space = 150 GB
Disk Drive 1
Disk Drive 2
Disk Drive 3
Disk Drive 4
250 GB
250 GB
400 GB
400 GB
Drive Segment Size
(Smallest Disk Drive)
Disk Drive 2
Disk Drive 3
Disk Drive 4
Disk Drive 1
Unused Space = 150 GB
Disk Drives in Logical Drive
Based on the drive segment sizes used:
(P1 & P2)
RAID 6 Logical Drive = 500 GB plus parity
P2
1 P1 . . .
449
2 P2 . . .
P1
P1 3 . . .
500
P2 4 . . .
RAID 60 Logical Drives
Similar to a RAID 50 logical drive (see
RAID 50 Logical Drive
on page 121), a RAID 60 logical drive—also
known as dual drive failure protection—is built from eight disk drives configured as two or more RAID
6 logical drives, and stripes stored data and two sets of parity data across all disk drives in both RAID 6
logical drives.
Two sets of parity data provide enhanced data protection, and striping improves performance. RAID 60
logical drives also provide high data transfer speeds.
122
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