The basics of using a RAID calculator

Data is the soul of every business without which no business can survive. Therefore, loss of important data means unable to make rational decisions and thus losing business. Although companies try to prevent this by backing up their data, this is not enough.

Usually, in most cases, companies don’t have any protection against online disk failure. So, one of the most effective solutions is to protect data by adding a RAID (Redundant array of independent disks) in your storage. It results in faster performance and data protection. 

However, the question is how one can identify which RAID configuration is best for them. For this purpose, you need a RAID calculator. Continue reading the article to find more about it.

What is RAID Calculator? 

A RAID calculator is used to define which RAID level you can choose. Using parameters like storage size, the RAID performance, cost, and fault tolerance, the RAID calculator will explain the best RAID configuration for you. 

Before giving an exact answer, RAID calculator defines all the commonly used RAID configurations and compares them. Thus, you can choose your next RAID configuration. RAID level it compares includes:  

• RAID 0
• RAID 1
• RAID 1E
• RAID 10
• RAID 5
• RAID 50
• RAID 5E
• RAID EE
• RAID 6
• RAID 60

What does it Use For? 

RAID calculator, as explained in the above section, is used to calculate suitable RAID configuration for a user. It uses three key metrics to calculate all the important specifications for a RAID array. 

All you have to do is to enter RAID mode, single disk size, and quantity of disk. RAID calculator will give you results about raw storage size and the usable storage size. Therefore, before finalizing RAID configuration use RAID calculator to find out how much space is available for you. 

How to Use A RAID Calculator?

In this section, we will explain how anyone can use RAID storage calculator step-by-step:

1. First of all, choose the RAID level which you want to examine. 
2. Then, enter the size of your single disk drive. Generally, it depends on which RAID storage calculator you are using. However, most of the times the RAID calculator automatically assumes all the RAID array disks are of the same size. For those who have different sizes of disks, you should enter the size of the smallest disk.
3. Now, it’s time to enter several disks you want to use for a RAID configuration. There is a different requirement for different RAID levels. Don’t panic you will get a guide by a calculator message.
4. Then next is the capacity statistics section in the RAID calculator. It will display the usable capacity of the RAID array and unavailable capacity. Moreover, it will also display the result as a percentage.
5. In its next section RAID calculator will display RAID speed and shows the maximum read and write performance of each disk. Although these are theoretical figures, still they will be useful for comparing different RAID levels. Moreover, this section also explains fault tolerance of your RAID. 
6. And lastly, if you want to calculate the cost of different RAID configurations go to the cost of one disk section. RAID calculator will display cost per usable terabyte of storage and total disk cost. 

Final Words 

RAID calculator is an excellent tool used to calculate your RAID configuration for an ideal setup. Moreover, it helps with the capacity and redundancy you need for storage. 

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