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A RAID 5 system is best described by striping data across multiple drives with parity. This configuration improves data redundancy and performance. In RAID 5, data is split into blocks and distributed across three or more hard drives. Alongside the data, parity information is also stored, which allows for the reconstruction of lost data if one of the drives fails. This redundancy feature is a critical advantage, as it ensures that the system can recover from a single drive failure without losing data, thus providing a reliable option for managing critical information.
The process of striping helps in distributing the load during read and write operations, leading to improved performance compared to systems that only write data to a single drive. The integration of parity adds a level of fault tolerance, which is essential for users requiring high availability of their data. This description highlights how RAID 5 balances performance enhancements with effective data protection, making it suitable for various applications where data integrity is key.