What component is required for RAID 1?

RAID 1, also known as disk mirroring, requires two mass storage devices to function. This configuration works by duplicating the same data on both drives, ensuring that if one drive fails, the other still contains an exact copy of the data. This redundancy is a key feature of RAID 1, providing enhanced data reliability and protection against hardware failures.

While having additional drives can improve performance or provide other RAID configurations, they are not necessary for RAID 1 specifically, which relies on just two drives to achieve its mirroring capability. The use of a single drive or three or four drives would either not meet the requirements for RAID 1 or would be beyond the necessary setup for this particular RAID level.