JBOD vs. RAID

Next in our FAQ series, we are offering answers to a common question we get about “JBOD vs. RAID”.  From a physical standpoint, the disks within JBOD are treated as independent disks, whereas with RAID, the disks within the array are either spanned or treated as independent disks.

JBOD vs. RAID Features and Advantages:

Fundamentally, JBOD, means “just a bunch of disks” combined and presented to the OS.  JBOD has some big advantages including the fact that each of the drives in a JBOD arrangement can be accessed from the host computer as a separate drive.

RAID, which literally means “redundant array of inexpensive/independent disks”, has traditionally been the standard for configuring multiple hard drives.  RAID Types include: RAID 0 (striping), RAID 1 and its variants (mirroring),  RAID 5 (distributed parity), and RAID 6 (dual parity).

JBOD vs. RAID Scalability

JBODs are preferred by many as they are relatively easy to scale by just adding another drive.  The JBOD configuration also allows for the combined space of all the drives to be used by the end Operating System.  You can also mix different disk sizes in JBOD.

RAID treats a collection of drives as a single storage unit, so RAID configurations don’t allow different disk sizes to be used in the array. It requires all drives to be of similar capacity and model type.

 JBOD vs. RAID Affordability

SCSI, SAS and Hardware RAIDs are much more pricey than basic SATA disks and Controllers used in JBODs.

RAID is a more expensive solution, largely because it is less flexible and uses higher price point hardware components.

JBOD vs. RAID Trends

JBOD has become more and more of a preferred solution as storage becomes more massive and complicated.  Also, as other supporting technologies emerge, any concerns about JBOD in the past that were centered around data recovery and performance have largely gone away.

EBOD (enterprise bunch of disks) is emerging as a new paradigm also.  RAID, Inc. offers an incredible assortment of high performance products in this category.  Contact our experts to learn more.