Yes.
Mirrored Volume
You cannot do that, unless you are using RAID0 configuration.
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives) is the technology developed to decrease risk involved with the usage of individual disks for Storage. RAID adds realibility & provides performance in Read methods. Well Known RAID Levels are 1. RAID0 - Striping, 2. RAID1-Mirroring, 3. RAID2 - Striping at Bit levelusing Errorcorrection code on disks, 4. RAID3 - BYTE Level striping with parity disk, 5. RAID4 -Block Level striping with Dedicatedparity disk, 6. RAID5 - Striping at Block level with Distributed Parity, 7. RAID6 - Block level striping with Dual Distributed Parity.All RAID levelsenable Fault Tolerant storage volumes except RAID0.
RAID0 as it is just striping multiple drives to function as a single unit. For example, 4x2TB drives in a RAID0 would render a single drive approximately 8TB in size without overhead/formatting/etc. With formatting, the drive would be around 7.5TB (depending on which drives and host controller is being used). RAID0 is also the fastest RAID, however, it offers ZERO in the way of protection. If one drive fails, you lose all your data. That is why people tend to use RAID5 in a three or more disk array because it offers fault tolerance of one drive failure, which is usually all you need. However, even with RAID5, I have lost entire volumes by two simultaneous drive failures (the odds are astronomical). If you want protection from two disk failures, RAID6 is a newer technology that offers dual disk protection, however it uses storage space less efficiently than RAID5. To answer you question, RAID0 is the fastest and provides the most usable disk space, but has NO fault tolerance.
has to be raid 5. raid5 with the parity will consume about 1/3 of the disk space but will give just about the highest level of fault tolerance. raid0 - disk striping - will give you the full disk space but no fault tolerance raid1 - disk splitting/ duplexing - will give you full redundancy but will cost 50% of your disk space raid5 - parity - will do block-level striping with parity data , disk space cost about 30%, redundant
RAID 0 is "Stripping" and RAID1 is "Mirroring". RAID0 doesn't provide fault tolerance but RAID1 does provide fault tolerance because it has a every disk has a mirrored disk so that in case of disk failure the other disk can be used.
Mirroring is the method it is used. This is commonly in the specifications of RAID1, RAID5, RAID10, RAID1+0, RAID15, and others. RAID is commonly used to designate RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Disks) setups, but RAID is not technically recognized as a specification, and not all RAID types and enumerations (such as 15) are even recognized as valid designations. RAID may also not involve data redundancy or mirroring at all, such as in Striping (RAID0, RAID2, RAID3, RAID1+0, etc.)
System Specs: ASUS P6X58-E Pro Intel i7-980 Hex Core G.SKILL Ripjaws 24GB (6 x 4GB) SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) WD VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX 600GB 10,000RPM Quadro4000 NZXT Phantom ATX full tower CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W Win 7 Prof OEM Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 7200 RPM X2 Setup as RAID0 Config. WD VelociRaptor 600GB 10000 RPM H100 Water cooler with 4 COUGAR FANS setup as Push/Pull
Those two technologies have nothing incomon except for the fact that both address mass storages. RAID is a technology to span data over multiple disks to either gain more speed (seldom e.g. RAID0) or gain redundancy so that the system remains functional when one of the mass storages fail (e.g. RAID1 or RAID5). SAN means that there is a dedicated network instead of a local bus connecting the hostadapter to the storage. These networks use often similar protocol as on a local buses (e.g. iSCSI). Data is not aqured on a file per file base like in a server instead the host requests the specific blocks he would like to read. Advantages of a SAN may be fast switch over of mass storages from one Node to an other (storage failover if a node fails), storage sharing (one big disk [might even be a RAID system] is split up into two or more "virtual" disks which are then handeled by the respective node) or a centralized fast access for backup storages. Important thing to know is: both technologies may be (and are often) combined to get the best of both worlds.