{"id":50573,"date":"2014-01-28T20:09:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T17:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/?p=50573"},"modified":"2020-05-10T20:50:47","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T17:50:47","slug":"performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/","title":{"rendered":"Performance of RAID Arrays on Windows Azure: an Alternative to Horizontal Scaling"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_79_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-transparent ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#HDD_issues\" >HDD issues<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#RAID_performance_under_different_workloads\" >RAID performance under different workloads<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#Performance_of_2_4_and_8_drives_in_a_RAID_array\" >Performance of 2, 4, and 8 drives in a RAID array<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#Stability_check\" >Stability check<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#Summary\" >Summary<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#How_to_configure_a_RAID_array\" >How to configure a RAID array<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#More_RAID_performance_results\" >More RAID performance results<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#Related_slides\" >Related slides<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#Further_reading\" >Further reading<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"HDD_issues\"><\/span>HDD issues<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>While working with several different NoSQL databases heavily loaded with write requests, we faced a situation when the hard drive became a bottleneck. Scaling the cluster horizontally could easily solve this kind of problem, but it would also increase monthly payments. This is why we decided to take a look at other options.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing that comes to mind when a database starts experiencing the hard disk drive (HDD) performance issues is to combine several virtual drives into a RAID array. To check how it will work with the Windows Azure virtual infrastructure, we compared the performance of a single virtual drive and different RAID arrays (types: 0, 1, 4, 5, and 6), using the Bonnie++ tool for hard drive subsystem verification.<\/p>\n<p>In this blog post, we share the test results and step-by-step instructions on how to configure a RAID array on your own.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"RAID_performance_under_different_workloads\"><\/span>RAID performance under different workloads<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>In the first test, we measured the performance of different RAID arrays for simple read\/write operations:<\/p>\n<pre>\r\nsudo bonnie++ -d \/raid1\/ -m 'raid1'  -u root -n 100:8192:16384:20 -x10 -s 16g -f &gt; raid1.csv\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>Bonnie++ was run 10 times (-x10). Each test worked with 100 files of 8-16 KB in size and 20 subdirectories. In total, there were 16 GB of \u201cfiles\u201d in each iteration. Since a large Windows Azure instance has 7 GB of RAM, we had a chance to avoid caching.<\/p>\n<p>The first test results can be seen below. The x-axis stands for megabytes per second, the y-axis indicates repetitions (we ran each test 10 times).<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/writing-tests.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/writing-tests-1024x322.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"  class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-50586\" \/><\/a><small>The write test results<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/reading-test-results.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/reading-test-results-1024x322.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"  class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-50588\" \/><\/a><small>The read test results<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/rewriting-test-results.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/rewriting-test-results-1024x322.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"  class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-50589\" \/><\/a><small>The rewrite test results<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/input-output-operations-per-second.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/input-output-operations-per-second.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"371\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-50591\" \/><\/a><small>Input\/output operations per second<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p>According to these results, RAID 0 demonstrated the best performance in the write test and almost the same results in the read test. The IOPS values ranged from 350 to 450 for all RAID types.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Performance_of_2_4_and_8_drives_in_a_RAID_array\"><\/span>Performance of 2, 4, and 8 drives in a RAID array<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>In this section, we explore how the number of virtual drives affected RAID performance. For this test, we started two more large instances. One of them was used to create a level 0 RAID array of four drives and the other one for a level 0 RAID array of eight virtual drives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>four drives:\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">sudo mdadm --create \/dev\/md0 --level=0 --raid-devices=4 \/dev\/sdc \/dev\/sdd \/dev\/sde \/dev\/sdf<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">eight drives:\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">sudo mdadm --create \/dev\/md0 --level=0 --raid-devices=8 \/dev\/sdc \/dev\/sdd \/dev\/sde \/dev\/sdf \/dev\/sdg \/dev\/sdh \/dev\/sdi \/dev\/sdj<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We ran the same test on both VMs.<\/p>\n<pre>sudo bonnie++ -d \/raid0\/ -m 'raid0'  -u root -n 100:16384:16384:20 -x10 -s 16g -f &gt; raid0.csv<\/pre>\n<p>The diagram below represents the results of RAID read and write tests.<\/pr>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/raid-read-write-test-results.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/raid-read-write-test-results-1024x322.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"322\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-50592\" \/><\/a><small>The RAID read and write test results<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Stability_check\"><\/span>Stability check<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The last test was to check how stable Azure storage is. Here, we consequently tested RAID performance under a workload for 8+ hours.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/RAID-tests-iterations.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/RAID-tests-iterations-1024x634.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"  class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-50593\" \/><\/a><small>The RAID iterations test results<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Summary\"><\/span>Summary<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Given the results of all three tests, we can make the following conclusions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Windows Azure virtual drives work faster when combined in a RAID array. A level 0 array is the fastest storage.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">The number of virtual drives has the biggest effect on write operations. A RAID 0 array with eight nodes works 4.5 times faster than a single virtual drive.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">When performing read operations, eight nodes work two times faster than a single drive.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Virtual disks work faster when in use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tests-results-summary.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tests-results-summary-247x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"247\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-50594\" \/><\/a><small>The RAID read and write test results<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Red and blue lines represent the servers that had already been used in Test 1. Green and yellow lines stand for the new servers that we started for Test 2. Every time a new server is created and starts using HDD heavily, it takes ~30 minutes for it to accelerate to the maximum speed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_to_configure_a_RAID_array\"><\/span>How to configure a RAID array<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The following steps will help you to set up a RAID array for your own project:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Attach empty drives to a VM using a CLI or a Web interface. The number of disks that can be attached depends on the VM&#8217;s size.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Use the following commands to find the names of the disks:\n<p style=\"margin-top: 20px!important;\">a) CentOS:<\/p>\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">vi \/proc\/partitions<\/pre>\n<p>b) Ubuntu:<\/p>\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">sudo lshw -class disk<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Combine them into a RAID array (all the disks from step one must be listed in this command):\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">sudo mdadm --create \/dev\/md0 --level=0 --raid-devices=2 \/dev\/sdd \/dev\/sde<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<li>Mount the newly created RAID disk to the file system using the following commands:\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">sudo mkfs.ext3 \/dev\/md0<\/pre>\n<pre style=\"margin-top: 20px;\">sudo mount \/dev\/md0 \/raid0<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s it. Now you can start using your new disk. Still it is worth reading the \u201cSaving your RAID configuration\u201d section <a href=\"https:\/\/raid.wiki.kernel.org\/index.php\/RAID_setup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"More_RAID_performance_results\"><\/span>More RAID performance results<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>We&#8217;re also planning to run other tests for RAID arrays on Windows Azure. In particular:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Re-test RAID 0 and 1 in the multi-thread mode (we expect the results to be different)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Try to improve read performance by changing the \u201cread ahead\u201d parameter in RAID configuration<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: 6px;\">Test how a real database will perform on RAID disks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Related_slides\"><\/span>Related slides<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.slideshare.net\/slideshow\/embed_code\/key\/1SKwVeBjBTtOuR\" width=\"595\" height=\"485\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"border:1px solid #CCC; border-width:1px; margin-bottom:5px; max-width: 100%;\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Further_reading\"><\/span>Further reading<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/research-papers\/hadoop-on-windows-azure-hive-vs-javascript-for-processing-big-data-2\/\">Hadoop on Windows Azure: Hive vs. JavaScript for Processing Big Data<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/hosting-a-big-data-meetup-hadoop-on-windows-azure-from-microsoft-first-hand\/\">Hosting a Big Data Meetup: Hadoop on Windows Azure from Microsoft First-Hand<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/cloud-platforms-windows-azure-ideal-cloud-architecture-for-net-developers\/\">Cloud Platforms: Windows Azure\u2014Ideal Cloud Architecture for .NET Developers<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><center><small>The post was written by Sergey Balashevich and edited by <b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/author\/alex\/\">Alex Khizhniak<\/a><\/b>.<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HDD issues<\/p>\n<p>While working with several different NoSQL databases heavily loaded with write requests, we faced a situation when the hard drive became a bottleneck. Scaling the cluster horizontally could easily solve this kind of problem, but it would also increase monthly payments. This is why we decided to take a [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":50598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[873],"class_list":["post-50573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-opinion","tag-cloud-native"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Performance of RAID Arrays on Windows Azure: an Alternative to Horizontal Scaling | Altoros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This blog post shares the results of the performance comparison of a single virtual drive and different RAID arrays types.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Performance of RAID Arrays on Windows Azure: an Alternative to Horizontal Scaling | Altoros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"HDD issues While working with several different NoSQL databases heavily loaded with write requests, we faced a situation when the hard drive became a bottleneck. 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This is why we decided to take a [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Altoros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-28T17:09:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-10T17:50:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-featured-image.gif\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sergey Balashevich\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sergey Balashevich\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/\",\"name\":\"Performance of RAID Arrays on Windows Azure: an Alternative to Horizontal Scaling | Altoros\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-featured-image.gif\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-28T17:09:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-05-10T17:50:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c71b4c4cc4cc4a44d640461a4278d9a1\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-featured-image.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-featured-image.gif\",\"width\":640,\"height\":360},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/performance-of-raid-arrays-on-windows-azure-an-alternative-to-horizontal-scaling\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Performance of RAID Arrays on Windows Azure: an Alternative to Horizontal Scaling\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Altoros\",\"description\":\"Insight\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c71b4c4cc4cc4a44d640461a4278d9a1\",\"name\":\"Sergey Balashevich\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Sergey-Balashevich-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.altoros.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Sergey-Balashevich-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Sergey Balashevich\"},\"description\":\"Sergey Balashevich is Head of Software Development at Altoros. 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