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A disk array is a
disk storage Disc or disk may refer to: * Disk (mathematics) In geometry, a disk (Spelling of disc, also spelled disc) is the region in a plane (geometry), plane bounded by a circle. A disk is said to be ''closed'' if it contains the circle that constitut ...
system which contains multiple disk drives. It is differentiated from a
disk enclosure A disk enclosure is a specialized casing designed to hold and power hard disk drives or solid state drives while providing a mechanism to allow them to communicate to one or more separate computers. Drive enclosures provide power to the drives ...
, in that an array has
cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Science and technology * Cache (computing), a technique used in computer storage for easier data access * Cache (biology) or hoarding, a food storing behavior of animals * Cache (archaeology), artifacts p ...
memory and advanced functionality, like
RAID RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...
, deduplication,
encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...
and
virtualization In computing, virtualization (abbreviated v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers. Virtualization began in the 1960s wit ...
. Components of a disk array include: *
Disk array controller A disk array controller is a device that manages the physical disk drives and presents them to the computer as logical units. It often implements hardware RAID, thus it is sometimes referred to as RAID controller. It also often provides additio ...
s *
Cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Science and technology * Cache (computing), a technique used in computer storage for easier data access * Cache (biology) or hoarding, a food storing behavior of animals * Cache (archaeology), artifacts p ...
in form of both volatile
random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of Computer memory, electronic computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows ...
and
non-volatile Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data. Non-volatile memory typ ...
flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
. *
Disk enclosure A disk enclosure is a specialized casing designed to hold and power hard disk drives or solid state drives while providing a mechanism to allow them to communicate to one or more separate computers. Drive enclosures provide power to the drives ...
s for both
magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...
rotational
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...
s and electronic
solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk. SSDs rely on non- ...
s. *
Power supplies A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, current, and frequency to power the load. As a r ...
Typically a disk array provides increased availability, resiliency, and maintainability by using additional redundant components (controllers, power supplies, fans, etc.), often up to the point where all single points of failure (SPOFs) are eliminated from the design. Additionally, disk array components are often hot-swappable. Traditionally disk arrays were divided into categories: *
Network attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. In this context, the term "NAS" can refer to both the technology and systems ...
(NAS) arrays *
Storage area network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block device, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access Computer data storage, data storage devices, such as disk ...
(SAN) arrays: ** Modular SAN arrays ** Monolithic SAN arrays ** Utility Storage Arrays *
Storage virtualization In computer science, storage virtualization is "the process of presenting a logical view of the physical storage resources to" a host computer system, "treating all storage media (hard disk, optical disk, tape, etc.) in the enterprise as a sing ...
Primary vendors of storage systems include Coraid, Inc., DataDirect Networks,
Dell EMC EMC Corporation (stylized as EMC²) was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, which sold data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other products and services th ...
, Fujitsu,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas. It is a business-focused organization which works in servers, storage, networking, containerization software and ...
, Hitachi Data Systems,
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...
,
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
Infortrend Infortrend Technology () is a Taiwanese technology company specializing in SAN and NAS storage systems. The company is headquartered in the Zhonghe District of New Taipei, Taiwan, and has regional headquarters in Tokyo, Sunnyvale, California, B ...
,
NetApp NetApp, Inc. is an American data infrastructure company that provides unified data storage, integrated data services, and cloud operations (CloudOps) solutions to enterprise customers. The company is based in San Jose, California. It has ranked ...
,
Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...
, Panasas,
Pure Storage Pure Storage, Inc. is an American publicly traded technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States. It develops all-flash data storage hardware and software products. Pure Storage was founded in 2009 and developed its ...
and other companies that often act as OEM for the above vendors and do not themselves market the storage components they manufacture.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Disk array Computer data storage Fault-tolerant computer systems RAID