RAID 10 vs RAID 50, safe difference

We are creating a new volume like Storage Production, until a QNAP message assaulted the doubt. Do you know which of the 2 Raids have lower data loss risk? in my understanding, RAID 10 is safer, well use half of disk in mirroring, meanwhile the minimum fault tolerance of RAID 50 is 1, and the max, it depends on the amount of subraid, but no case I would have as much fault tolerance as a Raid 10. Im right? If so, why the NAS considers that Raid 50 is safer than Raid 10?

Raid data recovery

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Jace Elric

Participant

June 2, 2025 at 5:25 am

You’re right—RAID 10 generally offers better protection against data loss than RAID 50. RAID 10 uses a combination of mirroring and striping, which means it can survive multiple drive failures as long as they don’t occur in the same mirrored pair. This gives it consistent and predictable fault tolerance. On the other hand, RAID 50 is made up of multiple RAID 5 groups striped together. Each group can tolerate one drive failure, but if two drives fail within the same group, the entire array can be lost. This makes RAID 50 more vulnerable in certain failure scenarios.

QNAP may label RAID 50 as “safer” because with a larger number of disks, it can potentially survive more individual drive failures—provided those failures happen in separate RAID 5 groups. RAID 50 also offers better storage efficiency and higher performance for large sequential workloads, which some systems prioritize when assessing overall “safety” from a performance standpoint.

Still, RAID 10 offers stronger and more predictable data protection. It handles rebuilds faster, reduces the risk of total failure, and is easier to manage during hardware issues. If your main concern is minimizing the risk of data loss, RAID 10 is the more reliable choice.

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