Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of storing content on a number of hard drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the drives that are used - physical or logical ones, but what’s common between them is that they all work as just a single unit where your information is saved. The key advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy because the information on all the drives shall be identical at all times, so even in the event that one of the drives fails for some reason, the data will still be present on the remaining drives. The overall performance is enhanced as well as the reading and writing processes could be split between different drives, so a single one will not be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the efficiency and fault tolerance could differ according to the exact setup - whether info is written on all of the drives in real time or it's written on a single drive and after that mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Shared Web Hosting

The hard disks which we use for storage with our state-of-the-art cloud Internet hosting platform are not the standard HDDs, but extremely fast NVMes. They function in RAID-Z - a special setup intended for the ZFS file system which we work with. All of the content that you upload to the shared web hosting account will be held on multiple drives and at least 1 will be used as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where an extra bit is included to any content copied on it. If a disk in the RAID stops functioning, it'll be changed without any service interruptions and the info will be recovered on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk plus that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to ensure the integrity of the data and along with the real-time checksum verification that the ZFS file system runs on all drives, you'll never have to concern yourself with the loss of any info no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives that are used for storing any website content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we provide work in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an extra bit to any data duplicated on this type of a drive. In case that a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what information will be duplicated on the latter will be a combination calculated between the data on the other hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the information on the new drive will be correct. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue functioning adequately and the problematic drive won't have an impact on the proper operation of your websites by any means. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an amazing addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our advanced cloud platform with respect to preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses unique digital identifiers referred to as checksums in order to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

The physical servers where we generate VPS server work with quick NVMe drives which will boost the speed of your sites noticeably. The drives work in RAID to make sure that you won't lose any data due to a power loss or a hardware failure. The production servers work with multiple drives where the information 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 restore the site content without loss in the event a main drive breaks down. In case you choose our backup service, your data will be saved on a separate machine that uses standard hard-disk drives and even though there isn't a parity one in this case, they are also in a RAID to make sure that we will have a backup copy of your content at all times. With this particular configuration your data will always be safe as it will be available on several drives.