RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of keeping data on multiple hard drives which function together as a single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the second case one single drive is split into different ones via virtualization software. Either way, identical info is stored on all the drives and the basic benefit of using this kind of a setup is that if a drive fails, the data shall still be available on the other ones. Employing a RAID also boosts the performance since the input and output operations will be spread among several drives. There are several kinds of RAID dependant upon how many hard drives are used, whether writing is done on all of the drives in real time or just on one, and how the information is synchronized between the drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. These factors imply that the fault tolerance as well as the performance between the different RAID types can vary.

RAID in Cloud Web Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud hosting platform employs for storage work in RAID-Z. This sort of RAID is developed to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it employs the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where data located on the other drives is copied with an extra bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks fails, your websites shall continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the malfunctioning one, the info which will be copied on it will be recovered from what is stored on the remaining drives as well as the information from the parity disk. This is performed so as to be able to recalculate the elements of every single file correctly and to confirm the integrity of the info copied on the new drive. This is an additional level of security for the content which you upload to your cloud web hosting account together with the ZFS file system that compares a special digital fingerprint for every single file on all the drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

In case you host your websites inside a semi-dedicated hosting account from our firm, any content you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which work in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least 1 of the disks is employed for parity - when data is synced between the hard drives, an extra bit is included in it on the parity one. The idea behind this is to guarantee the integrity of the information that is copied to a brand new drive if one of the drives in the RAID stops functioning as the content being copied on the brand new disk is recalculated from the info on the standard disk drives and on the parity one. Another advantage of RAID-Z is the fact that even in case a disk drive stops functioning, the system could switch to a different one instantly without service disturbances of any sort. RAID-Z adds an extra level of protection for the content you upload on our cloud hosting platform along with the ZFS file system which uses unique checksums to validate the integrity of every single file.

RAID in VPS

The NVMe drives which we use on the physical machines where we create virtual private servers function in RAID to make sure that any content which you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least one drive is used for parity - one bit of information is added to any data cloned on it. If a main drive fails, it is replaced and the info that will be duplicated on it is calculated between the other drives and the parity one. This is done to ensure that the right data is copied and that not a single file is corrupted because the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard drives operating in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you shall use an even more reliable Internet hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any type of unforeseen hardware failure.