CompTIA Cloud+ Practice Test

RAID 10, also known as RAID 1+0, combines the benefits of RAID 1 and RAID 0. It provides both redundancy and improved performance. In this configuration, data is mirrored across pairs of disks (like RAID 1), which ensures that if one disk fails, the data is still accessible from its mirror. Additionally, the mirrored pairs are striped (like RAID 0), allowing for increased read and write speeds by distributing data across multiple disks. This combination makes RAID 10 particularly advantageous in environments where performance and data availability are critical. While it requires at least four disks and has a higher cost in terms of usable capacity (as half of the disk space is used for mirroring), it achieves a robust balance that is superior to the other RAID levels listed. Other configurations achieve either better performance (like RAID 0, which has no redundancy), or better redundancy without substantial performance benefits (like RAID 1 and RAID 5, which has additional complexity in parity calculations that can impact performance during writes). Thus, RAID 10 stands out as offering the optimal mix of speed and data security.