Is Your Data Safe With RAID 5?

According to this ZDNet Storage Bits blog, RAID 5 pain is on message boards and support forums all over the net, with reports of failed rebuilds, lost data, and some unhappy bosses. This report by Robin Harris takes a look at why RAID 5 isn't as reliable as it is supposed to be.

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"In A Highly Accurate Method for Assessing Reliability of RAID researchers Jon G. Elerath of NetApp - a major storage vendor - and Prof. Michael Pecht of the University of Maryland, compared RAID theory against actual field data. They found that MTTDL calculations inaccurate for 3 reasons:

"Errors in statistical theory of repairable systems.
"Incomplete consideration of failure modes.
"Inaccurate time-to-failure distributions.

"By repairing MTTDL’s theoretical basis, adding real-world failure data and using Monte Carlo simulations they found that today’s MTTDL estimates are wildly optimistic. Which means your data is a lot less safe with RAID 5 than you know."

Read the Full "RAID 5: Theory & Reality" Story at ZDNet Storage Bits