raid calculadora

Why a RAID Calculator Matters

Storage planning sounds simple until you start mixing RAID levels, parity overhead, and spare disks. A 6-bay NAS with 6 TB drives does not always give you 36 TB of usable space. Depending on your RAID choice, you might end up with 30 TB, 24 TB, 18 TB, or even less.

This is exactly where a practical raid calculadora helps. Instead of guessing, you can model your array before you buy hardware, then compare trade-offs between capacity, performance, and resilience.

How This RAID Calculadora Works

The calculator above takes five inputs and produces a clean estimate:

• RAID level (0, 1, 5, 6, or 10)
• Total disks installed in the system
• Disk size (same size assumed for all drives)
• Unit (TB or GB)
• Hot spares reserved for automatic rebuilds

It then calculates total raw capacity, active raw capacity (excluding hot spares), usable capacity, overhead, and estimated fault tolerance.

RAID Levels Explained

RAID 0 (Striping)

RAID 0 combines all disks for speed and maximum capacity. There is no redundancy at all. If one drive fails, the array fails.

• Minimum disks: 2
• Usable capacity: all active disks
• Fault tolerance: 0 disks
• Best for: temporary or non-critical workloads

RAID 1 (Mirroring)

RAID 1 duplicates data on multiple drives. In this calculator, RAID 1 is treated as a full mirror set across active disks, so usable space equals one disk.

• Minimum disks: 2
• Usable capacity: one disk
• Fault tolerance: up to all but one active disk
• Best for: high data safety with simple recovery

RAID 5 (Single Parity)

RAID 5 stripes data and parity across drives, allowing one-disk failure without data loss.

• Minimum disks: 3
• Usable capacity: (active disks - 1) × disk size
• Fault tolerance: 1 disk
• Best for: balanced capacity and protection

RAID 6 (Dual Parity)

RAID 6 is similar to RAID 5 but stores double parity. This protects against two simultaneous disk failures.

• Minimum disks: 4
• Usable capacity: (active disks - 2) × disk size
• Fault tolerance: 2 disks
• Best for: larger arrays where rebuild risk is higher

RAID 10 (Mirror + Stripe)

RAID 10 combines mirrored pairs with striping, delivering strong performance and redundancy. It requires an even number of active disks.

• Minimum disks: 4 (even)
• Usable capacity: active disks ÷ 2 × disk size
• Fault tolerance: one disk per mirror pair
• Best for: virtualization, databases, and high I/O systems

Important Planning Notes

• Smallest disk rule: mixed drive sizes are constrained by the smallest drive in most RAID implementations.
• Rebuild time: larger drives take longer to rebuild, increasing risk during degraded operation.
• RAID is not backup: RAID protects availability, not against accidental deletion, ransomware, or corruption.
• Controller differences: hardware RAID, ZFS RAIDZ, and software RAID can behave differently.

Example Scenario

Suppose you have 8 drives of 12 TB each and plan one hot spare:

• Total installed raw: 96 TB
• Active disks after spare: 7
• RAID 5 usable: 72 TB
• RAID 6 usable: 60 TB
• RAID 10 is invalid with 7 active disks (must be even)

With this quick estimate, you can decide whether capacity or higher fault tolerance is more important before deployment.

Final Thoughts

A good raid calculadora turns storage design into a repeatable decision instead of a guess. Use it early in your planning process, compare multiple RAID levels, and include a real backup strategy from day one. That combination gives you performance, resilience, and peace of mind.