What is Software RAID?

In this article, we will see about Software RAID in DBMS and examples where it can be used. Before moving on to Software RAID we will see what does RAID means.

RAID: RAID stands for “Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks”. RAID increases the performance, data redundancy or both by making use of a combination of multiple disks instead of using a single disk.

Software RAID: A Software RAID is another form of a RAID. It is performed on the Internal Server. It can also be defined as ‘RAID’ implementation that utilizes operating system-based capabilities to construct and deliver ‘RAID’ services.

When there is no RAID controller and the storage drives are connected directly to the motherboard then RAID configuration is managed by utility software in the operating system which is referred to as a setup of Software RAID.

Advantages of Software RAID:

• Processing Power: Most systems today are equipped with powerful processors, allowing them to manage RAID without having a noticeable impact on the system’s performance. It is mainly suitable for processing simple RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10.
• Cost: The largest benefit that software RAID is the cost. Since there is no need to invest in a hardware RAID controller. So the cost is less.
• Software RAID supports more than one drive.
• One of the main advantages is if one operating system has Software RAID configurations in it, then we can use it across other like systems.
• Re-configuration of the RAID levels is possible as the settings on it are flexible and not much complicated.

Disadvantages of Software RAID:

• Implementation is not much use if there is more than one driver installed on your system.
• There are operating systems that support only a limited type of levels of RAID (RAID 3, 4, 6, 50, 60, etc.)
• Once the system fails server can have a negative influence on data integrity.
• Replacement of the failed disk can be complicated.
• Software RAID requires a good algorithm to achieve decent performance. Without a good algorithm, software RAID performance will be affected. 
• As Software RAID processes on the internal server, it is slow.

Examples of a Software RAID:

• A large volume of Software RAID is used in big systems like Solaris RISC, Itanium, SAN systems found in enterprise computing.
• Network Attached Storage devices which are used for backups of SMBs have many software-RAID-based options: Netgear ReadyNAS; Synology DiskStation (DS).
• Software RAID is mostly used in open-source server systems.