What is the purpose of a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)?

RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is primarily designed to combine multiple physical disk drives into a single logical unit for the purpose of improving data redundancy (fault tolerance) and/or performance. The correct choice highlights that the core purpose of RAID is to provide a mechanism that allows data to be stored across multiple disks in a way that, if one drive fails, the data can still be recovered from the other drives in the array.

This fault tolerance is achieved through various RAID configurations, such as RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 5 (striping with parity), which ensure that data is duplicated or distributed in a way that protects against data loss due to hardware failures. The emphasis on combining multiple drives is fundamental, as it not only enhances data safety but can also improve read/write speeds through parallel processing, depending on the specific RAID level implemented.

Other options do not reflect the primary purposes of RAID adequately. Storing data on a single hard drive does not take advantage of the benefits that RAID provides. Enhancing speed without fault tolerance overlooks one of the critical features of RAID, which is to ensure data safety alongside performance improvements. Increasing the physical size of storage devices is not directly related to RAID; rather, it focuses on