Pop Quiz: RAID basics

From disk striping to distributed parity, RAID solutions can provide fault-tolerance and improve performance. But, how much do you really know about the different RAID levels? Take this short quiz and test your knowledge.

Note: Unfortunately, our poll tool, which I use to create each pop quiz, doesn’t let me indicate a correct answer after each question. To keep from giving away the answers before everyone has a chance to test his/her knowledge, and ruining all the fun, I’ve published the answers on the second page of this blog post. I encourage everyone to answer all the questions before looking at the second page.

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The acronym RAID stands for:
Redundant array of inexpensive/independent disks
Replication area for important data
Redistribution assignment of individual data
None of the above
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Which of the following RAID levels provides no fault tolerance?
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 10
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Which of the following RAID levels uses a fault-tolerance technique known as "disk mirroring"?
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 10
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Which of the following RAID levels uses a fault-tolerance technique known as "distributed parity"?
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 10
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Which of the following RAID levels uses a combination of disk striping and mirrored volumes?
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 10
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What is the minimum number of disks required for RAID 0?
1
2
3
4
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What is the minimum number of disks required for RAID 1?
1
2
3
4
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What is the minimum number of disks required for RAID 5?
1
2
3
4
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What is the minimum number of disks required for RAID 10?
1
2
3
4
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Which of the following fault-tolerance techniques requires two separate disk controllers?
Disk imaging
Disk duplexing
Disk mirroring
Disk striping
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Answers are on the next page.

Edited 1/18/2011: Fixed an error in one of the answers to the first question and fixed a problem with the answers appearing on the first page.