RAID 0 vs RAID 1 Capacity
Compare usable storage, performance, and redundancy between RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring). Find the right balance for your needs.
✓ Side-by-side capacity comparison
✓ Performance characteristics
✓ Redundancy trade-offs
Distributes parity across all drives. Survives one drive failure. Good balance of capacity and protection.
Usable Capacity
11.82 TB
75.0% storage efficiency
RAID level comparison
| Level | Min | Fault tolerance | Capacity formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| RAID 0 | 2 | None | N × Size |
| RAID 1 | 2 | N−1 drives | 1 × Size |
| RAID 5 | 3 | 1 drive | (N−1) × Size |
| RAID 6 | 4 | 2 drives | (N−2) × Size |
| RAID 10 | 4 | 1/mirror pair | (N÷2) × Size |
| RAID 50 | 6 | 1/sub-array | (N−2) × Size* |
| RAID 60 | 8 | 2/sub-array | (N−4) × Size* |
| JBOD | 1 | None | N × Size |
| SHR | 1 | 1 drive (SHR-1) | ≈(N−1) × Size |
* Assumes 2 sub-arrays. N = number of drives.
RAID 0 vs RAID 1: Complete Comparison
RAID 0 and RAID 1 are the two simplest RAID levels and represent opposite philosophies: maximum performance vs. maximum protection.
Example: 4 × 4TB drives
RAID 0: 16TB usable (100%) — 0 drive fault tolerance
RAID 1: 4TB usable (25% with 4 drives) — survives up to 3 drive failures
When to Use RAID 0
- Video editing scratch disks: Maximum sequential read/write speed
- Gaming load drives: Faster level loading, data is re-downloadable
- Temporary data processing: Speed matters, data is backed up elsewhere
- Never for: Anything you can't afford to lose
When to Use RAID 1
- OS/boot drives: Instant failover, no rebuild time for critical systems
- Small business servers: Simple, reliable, no parity overhead
- Database servers: Fast reads (can read from either mirror) + protection
- Any critical data: Where uptime matters more than capacity
Performance Comparison
RAID 0 read speed: N× single drive (scales with drive count)
RAID 0 write speed: N× single drive
RAID 1 read speed: Up to 2× single drive (reads from both mirrors)
RAID 1 write speed: ~1× single drive (writes to both mirrors simultaneously)
⚠️ Critical Warning
RAID 0 has zero fault tolerance. If ANY drive fails, ALL data across ALL drives is lost. The probability of failure increases with each drive added. RAID 0 with 4 drives is 4× more likely to fail than a single drive.