Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of keeping content on multiple hard drives simultaneously. A RAID might be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, yet what is common between them is that they all function as just one single unit where info is stored. The biggest advantage of using a RAID is redundancy as the data on all of the drives will be the same all the time, so even in case a drive fails for some reason, the data will still be available on the remaining drives. The overall performance is enhanced as well since the reading and writing processes could be split between various drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance may vary based on the specific setup - whether data is written on all drives real-time or it's written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.
RAID in Hosting
All of the content which you upload to your new hosting account will be stored on quick NVMe drives that work in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to employ the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform and it adds one more level of protection for your website content in addition to the real-time checksum validation which ZFS uses to guarantee the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the data is saved on a couple of disks and at least one is a parity disk - whenever info is written on it, an additional bit is added, so in the event that any drive stops functioning for some reason, the stability of the data can be verified by recalculating its bits based on what is stored on the production hard drives and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the operation of our system will never be interrupted and it will continue operating efficiently until the problematic drive is changed and the info is synced on it.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives that are used for storing any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts that we offer function in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup where one or more disk drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an extra bit to any data copied on such a drive. In case that a disk fails and is substituted with a new one, what information will be duplicated on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the remaining drives and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the data on the new drive shall be correct. During the process, the RAID will continue operating adequately and the malfunctioning drive will not affect the normal operation of your Internet sites in any way. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our cutting-edge cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses unique digital identifiers known as checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
The physical servers where we make virtual private server employ quick NVMe drives that will boost the speed of your websites noticeably. The disk drives function in RAID to make sure that you will not lose any info due to a power loss or a hardware breakdown. The production servers take advantage of a variety of drives where the info is saved and one disk is used for parity i.e. one bit is added to all of the data copied on it, that makes it easier to recover the content without any loss in the event a main drive breaks down. If you choose our backup service, the info will be saved on an individual machine which uses standard hard-disk drives and though there isn't a parity one in this case, they are also in a RAID to ensure that we will have a backup of your website content all the time. With this configuration your data will always be safe as it will be available on multiple drives.