Video Storage RAID & Redundancy Calculator
Calculate usable storage capacity, read/write speed multipliers, drive fault tolerance, and rebuild failure risks across RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 storage arrays.
1. Storage Array Configuration
2. Usable Capacity & Safety Profile
Understanding RAID Architectures for 4K & 8K Video Editing
Post-production video workflows require high read/write throughput and continuous data redundancy:
- RAID 0 (Performance Only): Stripes data across all disks with zero parity overhead. If any single drive fails, 100% of all data on all drives is permanently destroyed. Use strictly for temporary scratch and cache disks.
- RAID 5 (Single Parity): Distributes parity blocks across all drives. Allows one drive failure. With large modern drives (12 TB+), the intense read stress of a rebuild can trigger a second drive failure or Unrecoverable Read Error (URE).
- RAID 6 (Dual Parity): Employs two independent mathematical parity checksums (Reed-Solomon / syndrome). The array survives any two simultaneous drive failures, making it the gold standard for high-capacity 8-bay and 12-bay NAS servers.
- RAID 10 (Striped Mirrors): Pairs drives into mirrors and stripes data across the pairs. Provides the fastest rebuild times with zero parity calculation overhead, sacrificing 50% of raw disk capacity.
Worked examples: usable capacity and rebuild risk
The tool takes the number of drives and their size and works out the usable capacity for the RAID level. RAID 0 keeps everything. RAID 1 is always two drives and keeps one drive's worth. RAID 5 keeps all but one drive, RAID 6 keeps all but two, and RAID 10 keeps half. The cost figure divides the price of all the drives by the usable terabytes. The first table uses the tool's starting settings of six 16 TB drives at $280 each.
| Level | Drives | Usable | Lost to redundancy | Survives | Rebuild risk in the tool | Cost per usable TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAID 0 | 6 × 16 TB | 96.0 TB | 0.0% | none | extreme risk, scratch only | $17.50 |
| RAID 1 | 2 × 16 TB | 16.0 TB | 50.0% | 1 drive | very low | $35.00 |
| RAID 5 | 6 × 16 TB | 80.0 TB | 16.7% | 1 drive | high rebuild risk at 12 TB and over | $21.00 |
| RAID 6 | 6 × 16 TB | 64.0 TB | 33.3% | 2 drives | extremely low | $26.25 |
| RAID 10 | 6 × 16 TB | 48.0 TB | 50.0% | 1 per mirror pair | very low | $35.00 |
RAID 1 shows two drives because the tool fixes it there, so its cost per terabyte is not comparable with the six-drive rows. RAID 5 gives the cheapest protected storage at $21.00 a terabyte, and RAID 6 costs $26.25 for the second parity drive.
The rebuild risk message for RAID 5 depends on the drive size and count. The tool calls it high from 12 TB drives and six drives, and moderate otherwise. The usable figure is also shown in tebibytes, because a filesystem reports binary units, and a decimal terabyte is 0.909495 of a tebibyte.
| RAID 5 array | Usable | As formatted | Rebuild risk in the tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 × 16 TB | 48.0 TB | 43.7 TiB | moderate risk |
| 5 × 16 TB | 64.0 TB | 58.2 TiB | moderate risk |
| 6 × 8 TB | 40.0 TB | 36.4 TiB | moderate risk |
| 6 × 12 TB | 60.0 TB | 54.6 TiB | high rebuild risk |
| 6 × 16 TB | 80.0 TB | 72.8 TiB | high rebuild risk |
None of this is a backup. A RAID array survives a drive failing, and deletion, corruption, theft and fire reach every drive at once.
Working Vocabulary
Key RAID storage and post-production disk array terms:
- RAID. Redundant Array of Independent Disks, combining multiple physical drives into one logical storage volume.
- Parity. Mathematical error-checking data used to reconstruct lost information when a drive fails in RAID 5 or RAID 6.
- Striping. Splitting continuous data streams across multiple physical drives simultaneously to multiply read/write throughput.
- URE (Unrecoverable Read Error). A physical sector read failure (typically 1 in $10^{14}$ bits on consumer drives, 1 in $10^{15}$ on enterprise drives).
- Rebuild Time. The duration required to repopulate and verify parity data onto a newly inserted replacement drive.