RAID 5 vs RAID 10: Which One Is Best For You?
A complete rundown of RAID 5 versus RAID 10. We answered 11 questions combined about RAID 10 vs RAID 5. Check out the RAID 5 and RAID 10 table comparison.
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- Why is RAID 10 Better Than RAID 5?
- How Safe is RAID 5?
- Does RAID 5 Require Identical Drives?
- Why is RAID 5 Deprecated?
- How Many Hard Drives Do You Need for RAID 5?
- Why is RAID 5 not recommended?
- How Many Disks Can Fail in a RAID 10 Array?
- Does RAID 10 need identical drives?
- Why is RAID 10 the Best Option?
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Let’s start with the basics RAID 5 and RAID 10.
RAID 5 | RAID 10 |
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Digging deeper…
RAID LEVEL | ADVANTAGE | DISADVANTAGE |
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RAID 5 |
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RAID 10 |
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RAID 6 and RAID 5 is recommended if you have five to six hard drives. If you have a small array, it should be okay to use. RAID data recovery, if ever needed, should be a relatively quick and easy process.
Hard disks RAID 10 mean while is recommended for intensive applications. It is recommended for businesses or individual-use. RAID 10 data recovery is very convenient and requires little to no down-time. It is perfect for databases, emails, web servers, and high-risk operations. If you have the budget for it, whether for individual use or bigger organizations, go for RAID 10.
RAID 5 VS RAID 10: Frequently Asked QUestions
Why is RAID 10 Better Than RAID 5?

RAID 5 RAID 6 is has good fault tolerance. It allows one single drive to fail without losing important data. You can replace the first or second disk failed drive while still having access to the stored data. It is a preferred Redundant Array of Independent Disks array for most home and individual users. It is cheap and secure.
But comparing it to disk drives RAID 0 RAID 1 combined, a multiple disks , it offers the high fault tolerance.
Although not required, it is strongly recommended. Unlike other multiple disks hardware RAID levels, it does not require synchronized first or second disk spindles so it is strongly advised to use drives of the same model and firmware. This will minimize any RAID 5 data recovery risks.
Between the two RAIDs, only RAID 5 requires identical drives. Another win for RAID 10.
It is one of the oldest RAID levels. It is the most basic and the foundation of all modern parity RAID levels. It is no longer found in production systems and so it is not recommended to use in new arrays. We must understand how this RAID works but it probably is no longer compatible with your systems.
It is a relatively small RAID compared to a hard disk drives RAID 1 and RAID 0 combo. You only need at least three storage hard drive to set up one hard drive. You can have up to 16 storage drives if you need more storage space. Information is converted into data blocks and is striped across all drives.
Compared to RAID 10, it is a small array. RAID 10 requires a minimum of 4 drives and has no maximum limits.
It is generally not recommended today because of its obsolete design. And because it only allows room for one disk failure, so losing one or two disks, or multiple disks, puts the this RAID level at a higher risk. If you use 3 drives or more, you face a bigger chance of another drive failure.
This can lead to losing all stored data for good. It is not recommended for important operations compared to a RAID 1+0 combo a.k.a RAID 10. With low fault tolerance the risk of losing data is too high and the hard drive storage capacity is limited.
Top performance RAID 10 can lose as many as 3 drives as possible provided that only one disk drive per pair fails. Since RAID 10 is a combination of RAID 1+0 and it stores data into groups of two disks, the data is very secure less prone to disk failure. In comparison, RAID Array 5 spreads data across all drives which puts stored information at risk of being permanently lost when two or more drives fail.
It’s main purpose is redundancy. It may be costly when it comes to storage space, but it is worth the investment. It is the safest of all RAID array levels.
No, RAID 10 array does not require the use of identical drives. Using drives with different read and write performance levels and capacity will not affect the performance of the array. What it requires, however, is the same hard drive architecture.
RAID 0 RAID 1 combined is the best option out of all RAID levels because it took the best features of RAID 0 and RAID 1 and combined them to create a hybrid array. It offers excellent performance and performs the fastest out of all of them. It is also resilient because it uses mirroring RAID 1 and striping RAID 0.
By using mirroring (RAID 1) and striping (RAID 0) on stored data, it provides the safest, most secure data storage system that RAID has to offer.
So Which is Better RAID 5 or RAID 10?
The answer is obvious…
high-performance RAID 10 is the better option compared to RAID 5. In fact, it is recommended for both business and home use. One can never be too careful when it comes to important data. Whether it is data for business or sentimental personal files, you can’t go wrong with it. It is a long-term investment that is worth every penny. It doesn’t hurt that it is a relatively inexpensive option.
We brought up the good and the bad of RAID 5 in our comparison just to highlight the advantages of RAID 1 and RAID 0 combination. Because RAID 5 is an obsolete system, it is not recommended. But it is still important to understand its basics, how it behaves when a disk failure occurs, since it is the foundation of most RAID levels.
We hope our discussion has helped make things clear and simple. Although, there is nothing wrong still using RAID 5 for home use, it will not hurt if you upgrade to a better, with high fault tolerance, and safer alternative. After all, the reason we use RAID is to improve storage performance and to keep our data safe from loss.
Remember that using top performing RAID, like the combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 is an investment. Make sure that you get the most value of your investment by choosing the best performing RAID level available. If you have any more questions regarding this topic or about RAID in general, feel free to contact us.

About the AuthorTommy Khamoushi, Data Recovery Expert
Tommy Khamoushi is an IACRB-certified Data Recovery Engineer and a Certified Forensic Computer Investigator. He has more than 20 years of experience in data recovery including providing technical support for the House of Representatives.
Tommy leads a team of data recovery engineers and experts at TTR Data Recovery to recover highly sensitive data for government agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and enterprise businesses using advanced and proprietary techniques and processes.
Connect with Tommy on LinkedIn.
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