RAID: Level 5

RAID 5 uses block-level striping combined with distributed parity to achieve a balance of performance, redundancy, and storage efficiency.

Parity information is distributed across all disks in the array, ensuring that no single disk acts as a bottleneck or point of failure. This configuration allows the system to recover from the failure of one disk by using the parity data on the remaining disks.

Although read operations are efficient due to parallel access to multiple disks, write performance is slightly reduced due to the parity calculations required.

RAID 5 requires at least $3$ disks, and the total usable storage is equal to the sum of all disks minus the one parity disk.

It is a versatile and cost-effective option, making it one of the most widely used configurations in environments like file servers, database systems, and small-to-medium business storage solutions. Still, rebuilding the array after a disk failure can be time-consuming, especially with large-capacity disks, which may increase the risk of additional failures during recovery.