- Nick Gold

As I began to write up the next segment of the Storage Primer, discussing external Direct-Attached Storage (DAS) options for the Mac Pro, I realized that I was starting to talk a lot about RAID solutions on the market, without having discussed in more general terms what exactly “RAID” means, and why it’s important. While I have talked about RAID 0 striped volumes and RAID 1 mirrored volumes in past installments, there is quite a bit more to RAID than that, and it really calls for its own article. Please read on to get a more thorough understanding of RAID storage technology!

Keep in mind that some of my explanations here veer toward using layman’s terms, rather than complex technical language, and that is every bit the intent. For more in-depth information, a simple Google search using the term “RAID” will net you more results than you could ever hope to review. With that said, let’s review the various RAID levels, as well as software-based versus hardware-based RAIDs.