Hardware RAID

A Hardware RAID is basically a form of a RAID in which’ all the processing is done on the motherboard. Hardware RAID was the initial type of RAID available.

It is a method where each of the drives is connected to a hardware RAID controller which is basically on a separate RAID card, different server, or built into a motherboard. The multiple RAID arrays are supported and configured by the Hardware RAID controllers, apart from this in some cases, the RAID controller can act as a mini version of a computer as they do come with processors to carry out the tasks. There is no additional load on the server processor since the RAID is managed by and processed on the controller board.

Advantages of Hardware RAID:

1. Performance: Hardware RAID is much faster than software RAID since it has a committed RAID system to manage the RAID independent of the operating system.
2. Compatibility: When we talk about compatibility we talk about the different operating systems, Hardware RAID is very much compatible across the different operating systems.
3. Fewer Use of System Resources: Since backups and recovery are handled by a dedicated RAID system so it gives very little stress to the system, and there are not many issues in making backup copies and data recovery.
4. Virus Protection: These RAIDS are unprotected from viruses because the host system is completely separated from the RAID system.
5. Flexibility: Flexibility is there while configuring RAID, which is complicated to realize without equipment.
6. Extra Configurations: It offers more configurations than those offered by software RAID.
7. Battery Backup: In case a power outage occurs it can provide protection from data loss and data corruption since RAID cards have batteries too.

Disadvantages of Hardware RAID:

1. Cost: One of the main drawbacks of the Hardware RAID is that it is more expensive than software RAID, one has to put money into dedicated hardware to manage your RAID array.
2. Restoring a RAID Card: It has been seen that the RAID controller fails at times and if it fails one has to find a compatible RAID card to replace it with to maintain your earlier configuration.
3. Hindrance: The performance of the RAID card hinders the performance of a system.
4. Installation: One can face problems while installing hard drives from other manufacturers.

Examples of a Hardware RAID:

1. Many hypervisors, including VMware, uses Hardware RAID.
2. Hardware RAID is mostly used in Proprietary software i.e. closed-source server systems.
3. A large volume of Hardware RAID is used in small systems.