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Operating System Ch-6 File Management Marks: 10

Q. Explain file structure with example - 4m

Files can be structured in any of serval ways. Three common possibilities are depicted in fig. The file in fig is an
unstructured sequence of bytes. In this model, a file is a sequence of fixed-length records, each with some
internal structure. The third kind of file structure is shown in fig. In this organization, a file consists of a tree of
records, not

necessarily all the same length, each containing a key field in a fixed position in the record.

Three Kinds of files (a) Byte Sequence . (b) Record Sequence. (c ) Tree

Q. Explain different file attributes – 4m

 Name: The symbolic file name is the only information kept in human readable form.
 Identifier: File system gives a unique tag or number that identifies file within file system and which is
used to refer files internally.
 Type: This information is needed for those systems that support different types.
 Location: This information is a pointer to a device and to the location of the file on that device.
 Size: The current size of the file (in bytes, words or blocks) and possibly the maximum allowed size are
included in this attribute.
 Protection: Access control information determines that who can do reading, writing, executing and so
on.
 Time, Date and User Identification: This information may be kept for creation, Last modification and
last use. These data can be useful for protection, security and usage monitoring.

Q. Explain any six file operations performed by OS - 6m

 Creating a file: Two steps are necessary to create a file. First space in the file system must be found
for the file. Second an entry for the new file must be made in the directory. The directory entry
records the name of the file and the location in the file system.
 Writing a file: To write a file, we make a system call specifying both the name of the file and the
information to be written to the file. Given the name of the file, the system searches the directory to
find the location of file then the write pointer must be updated whenever a write occurs
 Reading a file: To read from a file, we use a system call that specifies the name of the file and where
(in memory) the next block of the file should be put. System needs to keep a read pointer to location
in the file where the next read is to take place. Once the read has taken place, the read pointer is
updated.

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 Repositioning within a file: The directory is searched for the appropriate entry, and the current file
position is set to a given value. Repositioning within a file does not need to involve any actual I/O. This
file operation is also known as a file seeks.
 Deleting a file: To delete a file, we search the directory for the named file. Having found the
associated directory entry, we release all file space and erase the directory entry.
 Truncating a file: Instead of deleting a file and then recreate it, this function allows all attributes to
remain unchanged but for the file to be reset to length zero. User wants to erase the contents of the
file.
 Other common operations include appending new information to the end of an existing file, and
renaming an existing file.

Q. Explain different file access methods – 6m

Sequential Access Method:
The simplest access method is sequential access. Information in the file is processed in order, one record after
the other. This mode of access is by far the beginning current position most common; for example, editors and
compilers usually access files in this fashion. Reads and writes make up the bulk of the operations on a file. A
read operation read next reads the next portion of the file and automatically advances a file pointer, which
tracks the I/O location. Similarly, the write operation write next appends to the end of the file and advances to
the end of the newly written material (the new end of file).

To read a piece of data that is stored at the end of the file, one has to read all of the data that comes before it-
you cannot jump directly to the desired data. This is similar to the way cassette tape players work. If one
wants to listen to the last song on a cassette tape, he has to either fast-forward over all of the songs that
come before it or listen to them. There is no way to jump directly to a specific song.
Advantages of sequential file:
 Easy to access next record
 Data organization is simple
 Absence of data structure.
 Sequential files are typically used in batch applications where they involved the processing of all the
records (payroll, billing etc)
 They are easily stored on tape as well as disk.
 Automatic backup copy is created
Disadvantages of sequential file:
 Wastage of memory space because of master file and transaction file
 For interactive applications that involve queries and / or updates of individual records, the sequential
file provides poor performance.

Direct Access Method:

A file is made up of fixed-length logical records that allow programs to read and write records rapidly in no
particular order. Thus, we may read block 14, then read block 53, and then write block 7. There are no
restrictions on the order of reading or writing for a direct-access file. The direct-access method is based on a
disk model of a file, since disks allow random access to any file block. Direct access files are of great use for
immediate access to large amounts of information. Databases are often of this type. For the direct-access
method, the file operations must be modified to include the block number as a parameter.

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The block number provided by the user to the OS is normally a relative block number. A relative block number
is an index relative to the beginning of the file. Thus, the first relative block of the file is 0, the next is 1, and so
on, even though the actual absolute disk address of the block may be 14703 for the first block and 3192 for
the second. The use of relative block numbers allows the OS to decide where the file should be placed (called
the allocation problem) and helps to prevent the user from accessing portions of the file system that may not
be part of her file. When you work with a direct access file (which is also known as a random access file), you
can jump directly to any piece of data in the file without reading the data that comes before it. This is similar
to the way a CD player or an MP3 player works. You can jump directly to any song that you want to listen to.
Sequential access files are easy to work with, and you can use them to gain an understanding of basic file
operations.

Advantages of Direct File Access:

 Using this method we can access any records randomly.
 It gives fastest retrieval of records.
Disadvantages of Direct File Access:
 Wastage of storage space, if hashing algorithm is not chosen properly.
 This method is complex and expensive.

Q. Explain Swapping
The Resident Monitor memory management scheme may seem of little use since it appears to be inherently
single user. These systems used a resident monitor with the remainder of memory available to the currently
executing user. When they switched to the next user, the current contents of user memory were written out
to a backing store (a disk or drum) and the memory of the next user was read in. This scheme is called
Swapping.

Backing Store:
 Swapping requires a backing store. The backing store is commonly a fast drum or disk.
 It must be large enough to accommodate copies of all memory images for all users, and must provide
direct access to these memory images.
 All memory images are on the backing stores and which are ready to run. Whenever CPU scheduler
decides to execute a process it calls the dispatcher.
 The dispatcher checks to see whether that process is in memory, if not it swaps out process currently
in memory and swaps in the desired process.
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Q. List different file allocation methods. Explain any one in detail – 4m

File allocation methods are:
 Contiguous Allocation method
 Linked Allocation method
 Indexed Allocation method

Contiguous Allocation
 The contiguous allocation method requires each file to occupy a set of contiguous address on the disk.
 Disk addresses define a linear ordering on the disk.
 With this ordering, accessing block b+1 after block b normally requires no head movement.
 Contiguous allocation of a file is defined by the disk address and the length of the first block. If the file
is n blocks long, and starts at location b, then it occupies blocks b, b+1, b+2, …, b+n-1.
 The directory entry for each file indicates the address of the starting block and the length of the area
allocated for this file

Advantages of contiguous allocation:

 Support both sequential and direct access.
 Contiguous allocation is the best from the point of view of the individual sequential file. Multiple
blocks can be brought in at a time to improve I/O performance for sequential processing.
 It is also easy to retrieve a single block for example if a file starts at block ‘n’ and the ith block of the
file is wanted, its location on secondary storage is simply n+i.
 Provides good performance
Disadvantages of contiguous allocation:
 Suffers from external fragmentation
 Very difficult to find contiguous blocks of space
 Also with pre-allocation, it is necessary to declare the size of the file at the time of creation which
many a times is difficult to estimate.

linked Allocation (Chained Allocation):

 In this method, each file occupies disk blocks scattered anywhere on the disk.
 It is a linked list of allocated blocks.
 When space has to be allocated to the file, any free block can be used from the disk and system makes
an entry in directory.
 Directory entry for allocated file contains file name, a pointer to the first allocated block and last
allocated block of the file.
 The file pointer is initialized to nil value to indicate empty file.
 A write to a file, causes search of free block.

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 After getting free block data is written to the file and that block is linked to the end of the file.
 To read the file, read blocks by following the pointers from block to block starting with block address
specified in the directory entry.
 For example, a file of five blocks starting with block 9 and continue with block 16, then block 1,then
block 10 an finally block 25.each allocated block contains a pointer to the next block.

Advantages of Linked Allocation:

 Any free blocks can be added to a chain.
 The disk address of first block can be used to locate the rest of the blocks.
 There is no external fragmentation
 No need to pre-specify file sizes (files can grow/shrink).
 Never necessary to defragment disk. Blocks are completely utilized here. So no disk fragmentation.
 Best suited to sequential files that are to be processed sequentially

Disadvantages of Linked Allocation:

 There is no accommodation of the principle of locality that is series of accesses to different parts of
the disk are required.
 It is not an efficient scheme because the list traversal needs to read each block which is quite time
consuming.
 Space required for the pointers. 1.5% of disk being used for pointers not for information. If a pointer is
lost or damaged or bug in operating system or disk hardware failure may result in picking up the
wrong pointer.
 Cannot support direct accessing as blocks are scattered all over the disk.

Indexed Allocation:
 In this method, each file has its own index block.
 This index block is an array of disk block addresses.
 When a file is created, an index block and other disk blocks according to the file size are allocated to
that file.
 Pointer to each allocated block is stored in the index block of that file.
 Directory entry contains file name and address of index block.
 When any block is allocated to the file, its address is updated in the index block.
 Any free disk block can be allocated to the file. Each ith entry in the index block points to the ith block
of the file. To find and read the ith block, we use the pointer in the ith index block entry.

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Advantages of Indexed Allocation:

 Does not suffers from external fragmentation
 Support both sequential and direct access to the file.
 Indexing of free space can be done by mean of the bit map.
 Entire block is available for data as no space is occupied by pointers.
Disadvantages of Indexed Allocation:
 It required lot of space for keeping pointers. Wasted space.
 Storing many addresses i.e. pointers becomes an overhead
 Indexed allocation is more complex and time consuming.

Q. Differentiate between contiguous and linked memory allocation method – 4m

Contiguous memory allocation Linked memory allocation
Contiguous allocation requires that each file Data structures are connected by a series of nodes.
occupy a set of contiguous blocks on the disk.
Directory contains filename, starting block Directory contains filename, pointer to starting
number and offset block and ending block
Suffers from external fragmentation There is no external fragmentation
Very difficult to find contiguous blocks of space Any free blocks can be added to a chain.
Support direct access Cannot support direct access
Size of file declared at start Size of file need not be declared at start.
Insertions and deletions are difficult. Insertions and deletions can be done easily.
Pointers not used. Memory space required for pointer

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Q. List different Directory Structure and explain any one in detail – 4m

List of directory structures:
 Single level directory structure
 Two level directory structure
 Tree Level directory structure

Single Level Directory Structure: It is the simplest form of directory structure, having one directory containing
all the files, and each file must have a unique name. Software design is simple. The advantages of this scheme
are its simplicity and the ability to locate files quickly. Since all files are in the same directory, they must have
unique names. If there are two users who call their data file "test", then the unique-name rule is violated.
Even with a single-user, as the number of files increases, it becomes difficult to remember the names of all the
files in order to create files with unique name.

Advantages of Single level directory

 Simple directory structure.
 Less time required to search the files because all files are in the same directory.
 In this all files are contained in the same directory which is easy to support and understand

Disadvantages of Single level directory

 Since all files are in the same directory, they must have unique name.
 If two users call their data free test, then the unique name rule is violated.
 Files are limited in length.
 Even a single user may find it difficult to remember the names of all files as the number of file
increases.
 Keeping track of so many file is daunting task.
 This scheme is not used on multiuser systems but could be used on a small embedded system.

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Two level Directory Structure: In this structure, each user has its own user file directory (UFD). The UFD lists
only files of a single user. System contains a master file directory (MFD) which is indexed by user name or
account number. Each entry in MFD points to the UFD for that user. When a user refers to a particular file,
only his own UFD is searched. Different users can have files with the same name, as long as all the file names
within each UFD are unique. When we create a file for a user, operating system searches only that user’s UFD
same name file already present in the directory. For deleting a file again operating system checks the file
name in the user’s UFD only.

Advantages of Two level directory

 Different users may have files with same name.
 Solves the name collision problem.
 Effective searching.
 This scheme is not used on multiuser systems but could be used on a small embedded system.
Disadvantages of Two level directory
 The structure effectively isolates one user from another.
 Sharing of files by different users is difficult.

Tree-Structured Directory:
The two level hierarchies eliminate name conflicts among users but are not satisfactory for users with a large
number of files. We needed general hierarchy i.e. a tree of directories. With this approach, each user can have
as many directories as are needed so that files can be grouped together in natural ways. Fig, shows A, B, C
directories contained in the root directory each belong to a different user The ability for users to create an
arbitrary number of subdirectories provides a powerful structuring tool for users to organize their work. Users
can access the files of other users.

Fig. Tree-structured directory structure

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In this directory, a path name is used to change the current directory to the required file or directory. There
are two types of path names.
 Absolute path: An absolute path begins at the root and follows a path down to the specified file, giving
the directory names on the path.
 Relative path: A Relative path defines a path from the current directory. If the current directory is
root/spell/mail, then the relative path name prt/first refers to the same file as does the absolute path
name root/spell/mail/prt/first.
If a directory is empty, its entry in the directory that contains it can simply be deleted. However, suppose the
directory to be deleted is not empty but contains several files or subdirectories. One of two approaches can be
taken. Some systems, such as MS-DOS, will not delete a directory unless it is empty. Thus, to delete a
directory, the user must first delete all the files in that directory. If any subdirectories exist, this procedure
must be applied recursively to them, so that they can be deleted also. This approach can result in a substantial
amount of work. An alternative approach, such as that taken by the UNIX rm command, is to provide an
option: when a request is made to delete a directory, all that directory's files and subdirectories are also to be
deleted.

Advantages of Tree-structured directory

 Users can be provided access to a sub directory rather than the entire directory.
 It provides a better structure to file system.
 Managing millions of files is easy with this architecture.
Disadvantages of Tree-structured directory
 Search time may become unnecessarily long.

Q. Explain Disk Organization and Disk Structure

Disk Management is a Microsoft Windows utility first introduced in Windows XP as a replacement for the fdisk
command. It enables users to view and manage the disk drives installed in their computer and
the partitions associated with those drives. As can be seen in the picture below, each drive is displayed
followed by the layout, type, file system, status, capacity, free space, % free, and fault tolerance.

Physical Structure of Disk:

 A magnetic disk is most commonly used secondary storage medium. It offers high storage capacity
and reliability. Whenever the data stored on the disk needs to be accessed by the CPU, it is first
moved to the main memory and then the required operation is performed. Once the operation is

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performed, the modified data must be copied back to the disk. The system is responsible for
transferring the data between the disk and main memory as and when required

Fig. Hard disk structure

 A magnetic disk consists of a plate/platter, which is made up of metal or glass material, and its surface
is covered with magnetic material to store data on its surface.
 If the data can be stored only on one side of the platter, the disk is single-sided, and if both sides are
used to hold the data, the disk is double-sided.
 When disk is in used, the spindle motor rotates the platter at constant speed at the speed 60, 90 or
120 revolutions per second.

Fig. Moving head disk mechanism

 The surface of a platter is divided into imaginary tracks and sectors. Tracks are concentric circles
where the data is stored, and are numbered from the outermost to the innermost ring, starting with
zero. There are about 50,000 to 100,000 tracks per platter and a disk generally has 1 to 5 platters.
 Tracks are sub-divided into sectors. A sector is just like an arc that forms an angle at the center. It is
the smallest unit of information that can be transferred to/from the disk. There are hundreds of
sectors per track and the sector size is typically 512 bytes. The inner tracks are of smaller length than
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the outer tracks. There are 500 sectors per track in the inner tracks and about 1000 sectors per tracks
towards the boundary.
 Disk containing large number of tracks on each surface of platter and more sectors per track have high
speed capacity.
 A disk contains one read/write head for each surface of a platter which is used to perform read and
write operation. Information is stored on a sector magnetically by read/write head. The head moves
across the surface of the platter to access different tracks.
 All the heads are attached to a single assembly called a disk arm. Thus all heads of different platters
move together.
 The assembly of disk platters mounted on a spindle together with the heads mounted on a disk arm is
known as head-disk assembly.
 All the read/write heads are on the equal diameter track on different platters at one time. The tracks
of equal diameter on different platters form a cylinder.
 Transfer of data between memory and disk drive is handled by a disk controller, which interfaces the
disk drive to the computer system. Some common interfaces used for disk drives are SCSI (small-
computer-system-interface; pronounced “scuzzy”), ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), SATA
(Serial ATA), PATA (Parallel ATA)

Logical Structure of Hard Disk

Logical Structure of Hard Disk

Basically, we can divide the logical structure of the hard disk in the following five logical terms:
 MBR (Master Boot Record)
 DBR (DOS Boot Record)
 FAT (File Allocation Tables)
 Root Directory
 Data Area
The following figure represents the conceptual arrangement of these logical terms forming the logical
structure of a hard disk:

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Fig. Master boot record (MBR) or Master Partition Table (MPT)

Master Boot Record:

 It contains a small program to load and start the active partition from the hard disk.
 The MBR is created on the hard disk drive by executing FDISK.EXE command of DOS. (If there is no
MBR) like C:>FDISK.EXE/MBR
 It is located at absolute sector 0 or we can say at cylinder 0, head 0 and sector 1(The MBR).
 If we have more than one partition, then there are Extended Master Boot Records, located at the
beginning of each extended partition volume.

(DBR) Dos Boot Record:

 After the partition table, the DOS Boot Record(DBR) or sometimes called DOS Boot Sector is the
second most important information on your hard disk.
 It contains some important information about disk geometry like: Bytes Per Sector, Sectors per
cluster, Reserved Sectors etc.
 The DBR is created by the FORMAT command of DOS.
 The job of DBR is to load the operating system from the hard disk drive into the main memory of
computer and give the systems control to the loaded program.
 For doing this, the DBR contains a small program which is executed by the MBR Executable program.
All DOS partitions contain the program code to boot the machine, but only that partition is given
control by the MBR which is specified as active partition.

FAT (File Allocation Table)

 The FAT was introduced in 1977 to store data and has been modified several times to accommodate
expanding needs.
 It was developed to fulfil the requirements of a fast and flexible system for managing data on both
removable and fixed media.
 FAT keeps a map of the complete surface of the disk drive such that, which area is free, which area is
taken up by which file etc. When some data stored on the disk is to be accessed, the DOS consults the
FAT to find out the areas of the hard disk which contains the data.
 The FAT manages the disk area in a group of sectors called “CLUSTER”.

Root Directory:
 The Root Directory is like a table of contents for the information stored on the hard disk drive.
 The directory area keeps the information about the file name, date and time of the file creation, file
attribute, file size and starting cluster of the particular file.
 The number of files that one can store on the root directory depends on the FAT type being used.

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Data Area OR Files Area:

 The remainder of the volume after Root Directory is the Data Area.
 The data area contains the actual data stored on the disk surfaces.
 When we format a hard disk the FORMAT command of DOS does not destroy or overwrite the data on
the data area. The FORMAT command only removes the directory entry and FAT entries and it does
not touch the actual data area. This makes the recovery of accidentally formatted hard disk drive
possible.

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)

 RAID (redundant array of independent disks; originally redundant array of inexpensive disks) is a way
of storing the same data in different places on multiple hard disks to protect data in the case of a drive
failure.
 RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that
combines multiple physical disk drive components into a single logical unit for the purposes of data
redundancy, performance improvement, or both.
 Data is distributed across the drives in one of several ways, referred to as RAID levels, depending on
the required level of redundancy and performance.
 The different schemas, or data distribution layouts, are named by the word RAID followed by a
number, for example RAID 0 or RAID 1.
 Each schema, or a RAID level, provides a different balance among the key goals: reliability, availability,
performance, and capacity.
 RAID levels greater than RAID 0 provide protection against unrecoverable sector read errors, as well as
against failures of whole physical drives.
RAID Levels:
RAID Description
0 consists of striping, without mirroring or parity
1 consists of data mirroring, without parity or striping
2 consists of bit-level striping with dedicated Hamming-code parity
3 consists of byte-level striping with dedicated parity
4 consists of block-level striping with dedicated parity
5 consists of block-level striping with distributed parity
6 consists of block-level striping with double distributed parity
0+1 creates a second striped set to mirror a primary striped set
1+0 creates a striped set from a series of mirrored drives

RAID 0: This level strips the data into multiple available drives equally giving a very high read and write
performance but offering no fault tolerance or redundancy. This level does not provides any of the RAID factor
and cannot be considered in an organization looking for redundancy instead it is preferred where high
performance is required. Simple striping is used in this level to gain in performance. This level does not offer
any redundancy. Data is broken into stripes of user-defined size and written to a different drive in the array.
Minimum of two disks are required. It uses 100% of the storage capacity since no redundant information is
written. Recommended use for this level is when your data changes infrequently and is backed up regularly
and you require high-speed access. Web servers, graphics design, audio and video editing, and online gaming
are some example applications that might benefit from this level.

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Calculation:
No. of Disk: 5
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 500GB
Pros Cons
Data is stripped into multiple drives No support for Data Redundancy
Disk space is fully utilized No support for Fault Tolerance
Minimum 2 drives required No error detection mechanism
Failure of either disk results in complete data loss in
High performance
respective array

RAID 1:
This level performs mirroring of data in drive 1 to drive 2. It offers 100% redundancy as array will continue to
work even if either disk fails. So organization looking for better redundancy can opt for this solution but again
cost can become a factor. This level uses mirroring and data is duplicated on two drives. If either fails, the
other continues to function until the failed drive is
replaced. At the cost of 50% of available capacity, this level provides very high availability. Rebuild of failed
drives is relatively fast. Read performance is good and write performance is fair compared to single drive read
and write. A minimum of 2 drives is required. Whenever the need for high availability and vital data are
involved, this level is a good candidate for use.

Calculation:
No. of Disk: 2
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 100GB

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Pros Cons
Performs mirroring of data i.e identical data from one Expense is higher (1 extra drive required per
drive is written to another drive for redundancy. drive for mirroring)
High read speed as either disk can be used if one disk Slow write performance as all drives has to be
is busy updated

Array will function even if any one of the drive fails

Minimum 2 drives required

RAID 2:
This level uses bit-level data stripping rather than block level. To be able to use RAID 2 make sure the disk
selected has no self disk error checking mechanism as this level uses external Hamming code for error
detection. This is one of the reason RAID is not in the existence in real IT world as most of the disks used these
days come with self error detection. It uses an extra disk for storing all the parity information

Calculation:
Formula: n-1 where n is the no. of disk
No. of Disk: 3
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 200GB
No. of Disk: 7
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 600GB

Pros Cons
It is used with drives with no built in error detection
BIT level stripping with parity
mechanism
One designated drive is used to store parity These days all SCSI drives have error detection
Uses Hamming code for error detection Additional drives required for error detection

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RAID 3:
This level uses byte level stripping along with parity. One dedicated drive is used to store the parity
information and in case of any drive failure the parity is restored using this extra drive. But in case the parity
drive crashes then the redundancy gets affected again so not much considered in organizations.

Calculation:
Formula: n-1 where n is the no. of disk
No. of Disk: 3
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 200GB
Pros Cons
BYTE level stripping with parity Additional drives required for parity
One designated drive is used to store parity No redundancy in case parity drive crashes
Slow performance for operating on small sized
Data is regenerated using parity drive
files
Data is accessed parallel
High data transfer rates (for large sized files)
Minimum 3 drives required

RAID 4:
This level is very much similar to RAID 3 apart from the feature where RAID 4 uses block level stripping rather
than byte level. interleaves stripes like RAID-0, but it requires an additional drive just to store the parity, which
is used to provide redundancy. In a RAID-4 system, if any one of the disks fails, the data on the remaining disks
can be used to reconstruct the data that was on the failed disk. Even if the parity disk fails, the other disks are
still intact. Thus RAID-4 can survive the failure of any of its disks.

Calculation:
Formula: n-1 where n is the no. of disk
No. of Disk: 3
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 200GB

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Pros Cons
Since only 1 block is accessed at a time so
BLOCK level stripping along with dedicated parity
performance degrades
One designated drive is used to store parity Additional drives required for parity
Write operation becomes slow as every time a
Data is accessed independently
parity has to be entered
Minimum 3 drives required
High read performance since data is accessed
independently.

RAID 5:
It uses block level stripping and with this level distributed parity concept came into the picture leaving behind
the traditional dedicated parity as used in RAID 3 and RAID 5. Parity information is written to a different disk
in the array for each stripe. In case of single disk failure data can be recovered with the help of distributed
parity without affecting the operation and other read write operations. One of the most popular RAID
techniques, it uses Block Striping of data along with parity and writes them to all drives. RAID-5 systems
require a minimum of 3 disks. The impact on capacity is equivalent to removing one drive from the array. If
any one drive fails, the array is said to be degraded, and the data blocks residing on that drive can be derived
from parity and data on remainder of the drives. RAID controllers usually allow a hot spare drive to be
configured that is used when the array is degraded and the array can be rebuilt in the background while
normal operation continues. RAID-5 combine’s good performance, good fault tolerance, with high efficiency. It
is best suited for transaction processing and is often used for “general purpose” service, as well as for
relational database applications, enterprise resource planning and other business systems.

Calculation:
Formula: n-1 where n is the no. of disk
No. of Disk: 4
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 300GB
Pros Cons
In case of disk failure recovery may take longer
Block level stripping with DISTRIBUTED parity time as parity has to be calculated from all
available drives
Parity is distributed across the disks in an array Cannot survive concurrent drive failures

High Performance
Cost effective
Minimum 3 drives required
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RAID 6:
This level is an enhanced version of RAID 5 adding extra benefit of dual parity. This level uses block level
stripping with DUAL distributed parity. So now you can get extra redundancy. Imagine you are using RAID 5
and 1 of your disk fails so you need to hurry to replace the failed disk because if simultaneously another disk
fails then you won't be able to recover any of the data so for those situations RAID 6 plays its part where you
can survive 2 concurrent disk failures before you run out of options. The advantages of RAID-6 becomes even
more pronounced as the capacity of SATA drives go up and rebuilds take longer to finish. While calculating a
second parity has a negative impact on performance in software based RAID systems, the effect is very
minimal when hardware RAID engines that have built in circuitry to do the parity calculations are used. RAID-6
requires a minimum of four drives to be implemented and the usable capacity is always 2 less than the
number of available disk drives in the RAID set. Applications suited for this level are the same as those of level
5.

Calculation:
Formula: n-2 where n is the no. of disk
No. of Disk: 4
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 200GB
Pros Cons
Block level stripping with DUAL distributed parity Cost Expense can become a factor
2 parity blocks are created Writing data takes longer time due to dual parity

Can survive concurrent 2 drive failures in an array

Extra Fault Tolerance and Redundancy
Minimum 4 drives required

RAID 0+1
This level uses RAID 0 and RAID 1 for providing redundancy. Stripping of data is performed before Mirroring. In
this level the overall capacity of usable drives is reduced as compared to other RAID levels. You can sustain
more than one drive failure as long as they are not in the same mirrored set. RAID-01 is technically a
combination of RAID-1 and RAID-0, includes both mirroring and striping, but without parity. RAID-10 is a stripe
across a number of mirrored drives, and is implemented as a striped array whose segments are RAID-1 arrays.
RAID-10 has the same fault tolerance as RAID-1, as well as the same overhead for fault-tolerance as mirroring
alone. Advantages: Very high I/O rates are achieved by striping RAID-1 segments Excellent solution for sites
that would normally use RAID- 1 Great for Oracle and other databases which need high performance and fault
tolerance.

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Calculation:
Formula: n/2 * size of disk (where n is the no. of disk)
No. of Disk: 8
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 400GB

Pros Cons
No parity generation Costly as extra drive is required for each drive
100% disk capacity is not utilized as half is used for
Performs RAID 0 to strip data and RAID 1 to mirror
mirroring
Stripping is performed before Mirroring Very limited scalability
Usable capacity is n/2 * size of disk (n = no. of
disks)
Drives required should be multiple of 2
High Performance as data is stripped

RAID 1+0 (RAID 10)

This level performs Mirroring of data prior stripping which makes it much more efficient and redundant as
compared to RAID 0+1. This level can survive multiple simultaneous drive failures. This can be used in
organizations where high performance and security are required. In terms of fault Tolerance and rebuild
performance it is better than RAID 0+1. RAID-10 is not RAID 0+1. RAID-10 uses RAID-1 mirroring and RAID-0
striping, and has both security and sequential performance. RAID-10 is a striped RAID-0 array whose segments
are mirrored RAID-1. It is similar in performance to RAID 0+1, but with better fault tolerance and rebuild
performance. It has the same fault tolerance as RAID-1 with the same overhead for fault tolerance as
mirroring alone. Typically four plus hard drives are used, because RAID-10 creates two pairs of mirrored arrays
and combines these arrays to form one RAID-0 array. RAID-10 is appropriate for redundant storage of large
files, and because parity is not calculated, write operations are very fast. Minimum number of drives required:
4

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Calculation:
Formula: n/2 * size of disk (where n is the no. of disk)
No. of Disk: 8
Size of each disk: 100GB
Usable Disk size: 400GB

Pros Cons
No Parity generation Very Expensive
Performs RAID 1 to mirror and RAID 0 to strip data Limited scalability

Mirroring is performed before stripping

Usable capacity is n/2 * size of disk (n = no. of disks)
Better Fault Tolerance than RAID 0+1
Better Redundancy and faster rebuild than 0+1
Can sustain multiple drive failures

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