RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical disk drive components into a single logical unit for the purposes of data redundancy, performance improvement, or both. The heart of a RAID system is a controller card that manages individual hard disks and provides a logical configuration. Common RAID levels include RAID 0 for data striping without redundancy, RAID 1 for disk mirroring, and RAID 3 for byte-level striping with a single parity disk.