Best RAID Solution for Oracle 8i

[bbryantf]

I have been hearing desenting views as to what version of RAID provides the best performance for Oracle8i. Is RAID 0+1 preferable over RAID 5? Please identify why in your response.

 

[jimbopalmer]

RAID 0+1 always is the "best" but is pricey as it has 50% disk overhead and (wisely set up) uses twice as many cables and controllers

if each stripe is mirrored then striped, then as many as 50% of the disks can fail from either 'side', as well as cable and controller failure.

If the stripes are striped then mirrored, then only one mirrored 'side' can fail, but you are still protected from cable and controller failure.

reads are twice as fast as RAID 5, writes have no checksum calculation, but write twice, once to each side. (both benefit from NVRAM caching of writes if you plan your DB apps to never commit more than the size of the NVRAM)

RAID 5 is considerably cheaper than RAID 0+1, as only one disk per RAID set is overhead rather than 50% overhead of 0+1, but raid 5 does not protect you from controller failure or cable failures and only one disk can fail. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.