What is the primary characteristic of RAID 5?

The primary characteristic of RAID 5 is striping with parity. This RAID level combines the benefits of data striping and redundancy, which allows for improved performance and increased fault tolerance. In RAID 5, data is striped across multiple disks, meaning that portions of data are spread out, allowing for faster read and write operations. Additionally, parity information is calculated and stored alongside the data.

Parity is a form of redundancy that helps ensure data integrity. If one disk fails, the information can be reconstructed by using the parity data along with the remaining data on the other disks. This ability to recover from a single disk failure is a significant advantage of RAID 5, making it a popular choice for systems that require a balance of performance and data protection.

The other options, while related to storage technologies, do not accurately represent the defining characteristic of RAID 5. For instance, striping without fault tolerance implies that there is no redundancy, which is not the case with RAID 5. Striping with dual parity refers to RAID levels that have additional redundancy, like RAID 6, and is not a feature of RAID 5. Mirroring, which involves duplicating data across disks, characterizes RAID 1, and does not involve striping