A certain application initially uses 1TB of drive space, but this is expected to double each year for the next two years. Which of the following is the minimum number of 1TB drives that are needed in a RAID 5 configuration?
RAID 5 is a storage configuration that uses striping with parity, providing both improved performance and fault tolerance. It requires a minimum of three disks, where data and parity information are distributed across all drives. The storage capacity of a RAID 5 array is calculated as (N - 1) * S, where N is the number of drives, and S is the size of each drive.
Storage Requirements:
Initial Storage: 1TB
After 1 Year: Doubles to 2TB
After 2 Years: Doubles again to 4TB
To accommodate 4TB of data in a RAID 5 setup, we use the formula:
(N - 1) * 1TB ≥ 4TB
Solving for N:
N - 1 ≥ 4
N ≥ 5
Therefore, a minimum of 5 drives, each 1TB in size, is required to meet the projected storage needs. This configuration will provide a total usable capacity of 4TB, with 1TB allocated for parity to ensure fault tolerance.
[References:, CompTIA Server+ Certification Exam Objectives (SK0-005): RAID Levels and Types, CompTIA Server+ (SK0-005) Study Guide: Chapter on Storage Solutions]
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