 - MAID (massive array of idle disks) is a storage technology that employs a large group of disk drives in which only those drives in active use are spinning at any given time. This reduces power consumption and prolongs the lives of the drives. A MAID can have hundreds, or even thousands, of individual drives, and offers mass storage at a cost per terabyte roughly equivalent to that of tape. MAID technology is offered as an option to high-volume tape libraries.
A MAID is usually constructed with low-cost Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives, which have shorter mean time between failures (MTBF) ratings than more expensive drives. In MAID technology, every drive is periodically tested. If a drive shows signs of failure, data is transferred to other drives. A MAID has far greater storage density than a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) system of equal cost. In addition, the power and cooling requirements of MAID are much lower. Limitations of MAID include lower throughput than conventional disk arrays, longer latency times, less redundancy, and greater physical bulk and mass.
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18 Dec 2005
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