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Information Processing Letters
Volume 93, Issue 4, 28 February 2005, Pages 163-168
 
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doi:10.1016/j.ipl.2004.10.009    How to Cite or Link Using DOI (Opens New Window)
Copyright © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reconstruct versus read-modify writes in RAID

Alexander Thomasian1, E-mail The Corresponding Author

Computer Science Department, New Jersey Institute of Technology—NJIT, Newark, NJ 07102, USA

Received 20 July 2004; 
revised 28 October 2004. 
Communicated by J. Chomicki. 
Available online 24 November 2004.

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Abstract

RAID5 (Redundant Arrays of Independent Disk level 5) is a popular paradigm, which uses parity to protect against single disk failures. A major shortcoming of RAID5 is the small write penalty, i.e., the cost of updating parity when a data block is modified. Read-modify writes and reconstruct writes are alternative methods for updating small data and parity blocks. We use a queuing formulation to determine conditions under which one method outperforms the other. Our analysis shows that in the case of RAID6 and more generally disk arrays with k check disks tolerating k disk failures, RCW outperforms RMW for higher values of N and G. We note that clustered RAID and variable scope of parity protection methods favor reconstruct writes. A dynamic scheme to determine the more desirable policy based on the availability of appropriate cached blocks is proposed.

Keywords: RAID disk arrays; RAID5; RAID6; Small write penalty; Read-modify writes; Reconstruct writes; Clustered RAID; Disk access cost; Performance evaluation


Information Processing Letters
Volume 93, Issue 4, 28 February 2005, Pages 163-168
 
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