Storage Protection and Data Redundancy in UniFi (RAID)
UniFi Network Video Recorders and NAS devices leverage RAID technology to maximize storage availability and protect your UniFi Protect surveillance recordings and UniFi Drive Files against data loss. By utilizing multiple disks in an array, you can enhance both redundancy and retention, ensuring your data is safeguarded even in the event of hardware failure.
Protection Options
UniFi takes care of your data by offering advanced RAID options tailored to your needs. With choices like Basic Protection and Higher Protection, you can ensure your data is secure and your storage optimized.
Want to plan ahead? Use our storage calculator to determine the ideal setup for your system before you make a purchase. The table below further helps clarify how retention time and redundancy are intertwined as you select your size and quantity of drives.
| Basic Protection | Higher Protection | ||
| RAID Level | RAID5 | RAID6 | RAID10 |
| Requirements | Any NVR/UNAS with at least two HDDs installed. | ENVR with at least 9 HDDs installed. | Any NVR/UNAS with an even number (at least 4) of HDDs installed. Installing an odd number of drives designates the last one as a hot spare. |
| Protection Offered | Protects against 1 drive failing. | Protects against up to 2 drives failing. | Protects against up to half the drives failing, as long as no two are in the same mirrored pair. |
| Effective Storage Capacity* |
UNVR: 67-75% UNVR Pro: 67-85% |
ENVR: 78-87% | All: 50% |
| Recommendation | Maximize storage space while protecting against drive failure. | Half the storage space, but maximum resilience against data loss. | |
* Percentages represent how much of the total drive capacity is usable for storing data.
Hot Spare
Hot Spare reserves one disk in your array for emergency use. When a disk fails, the system automatically transfers data onto the reserved disk and retires the failed disk. This feature minimizes downtime and reduces the risk of data loss.
Note: During data transfer, performance speeds may be affected. Ensure your array has enough capacity and that your initial setup includes a disk reserved for this purpose.
Optimizing Your Deployment
To ensure smooth performance and data protection during setup:
- Select Uniform Disk Sizes: All disks in the RAID array must have the same storage size. Using mismatched drives limits overall retention to the smallest drive.
- Initial Configuration: Install all drives before beginning setup. Adding or replacing disks later requires rebuilding the RAID array, which can take several hours and temporarily affect system performance.
- Retention Considerations: Choose the largest drives your budget allows if retention period is a priority.
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Setup Wizard: Use the setup wizard to configure the RAID array and ensure your system is operational.
- Note that this process may take anywhere from several hours to several days to build your RAID array, depending on storage protection used, as well as size and quantity of drives.
- Storage Manager: After setup, check the UniFi OS Storage Manager to further optimize your system.
If you are using UniFi Protect, leverage Storage Manager to further optimize your retention.
Disk Health
UniFi simplifies monitoring disk and storage health, helping to protect data by identifying healthy, at-risk, or failed disks. You’ll get alerts about at-risk or failed disks, so you can address issues long before facing data loss. Learn more here.
Additionally, all disks have an LED indicator, which displays a White light when the disk is inserted, and an Amber light when there is a disk error.
Replacing Broken Disks
When a disk in your array fails, you can replace it without compromising the RAID configuration:
- Remove the failed disk.
- Insert a new disk of equal or greater storage size.
- Follow the prompts in the UniFi OS Storage interface to rebuild the array.
For detailed instructions, refer to Storage Replacement.