Fault Model

To understand RAID and compare different approaches, we must have a fault model in mind. RAIDs are designed to detect and recover from certain kinds of disk faults. Thus, knowing exactly which faults to expect is critical in arriving upon a working design.

The first fault model we will assume is quite simple and has been called the fail-stop fault model“Byzantine Generals in Action: Implementing Fail-Stop Processors” by F.B. Schneider. ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 2(2):145154, May 1984. Finally, a paper that is not about RAID! This paper is actually about how systems fail, and how to make something behave in a fail-stop manner.. In this model, a disk can be in exactly one of two states: working or failed. With a working disk, all blocks can be read or written. In contrast, when a disk has failed, we assume it is permanently lost.

One critical aspect of the fail-stop model is what it assumes about fault detection. Specifically, when a disk has failed, we assume that this is easily detected. For example, in a RAID array, we would assume that the RAID controller hardware (or software) can immediately observe when a disk has failed.

Thus, for now, we do not have to worry about more complex “silent” failures such as disk corruption. We also do not have to worry about a single block becoming inaccessible upon an otherwise working disk (sometimes called a latent sector error). We will consider these more complex (and unfortunately, more realistic) disk faults later.