Which RAID technology will provide the maximum data protection and available storage for a system with 6 physical disks?

RAID 0 stripes data across all disks with no parity or redundancy, meaning a single disk failure causes total data loss - it provides zero data protection.

RAID 1 mirrors data in pairs, so 6 disks yield only 3 disks of usable storage (50% efficiency), making it the least efficient option for available storage despite good protection.

RAID 5 with a hot spare across 6 disks provides 4 disks of usable storage and can recover from one failure, but only tolerates a second failure after the hot spare rebuild completes - leaving a window of vulnerability that RAID 6 eliminates entirely.

RAID 6 uses two independent parity blocks distributed across all disks, allowing the array to survive any two simultaneous disk failures without data loss - providing stronger protection than RAID 5's single parity. With 6 physical disks, RAID 6 delivers 4 disks worth of usable storage (6 minus 2 parity), which equals the usable capacity of RAID 5 with a hot spare but with superior fault tolerance since both parity disks are always active.