RAID 5 is efficient for read-heavy workloads but is not well-suited for applications that perform many small reads and writes due to the overhead of parity calculations. To improve performance while maintaining redundancy:
* RAID 0 (A): This would improve performance but does not offer any data protection, making it unsuitable.
* RAID 1 (B): Provides redundancy but does not enhance write performance significantly.
* RAID 6 (C): Offers better fault tolerance than RAID 5 but suffers from even higher write penalties due to double parity.
* RAID 10 (D): Combines mirroring (RAID 1) and striping (RAID 0), significantly improving both read and write performance while ensuring redundancy. This makes it the best choice for applications with high-frequency small reads/writes.
Since the administrator needs higher performance and data protection, RAID 10 is the best choice.
Reference: CompTIA Server+ SK0-005 Official Textbook, Chapter 5 - RAID Performance Considerations