Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on multiple hard disks simultaneously. A RAID might be software or hardware depending on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, yet what’s common between them is the fact that they all perform as just a single unit where information is kept. The key advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the info on all drives shall be the same at all times, so even in case some drive fails for some reason, the data will still be present on the other drives. The overall performance is also enhanced since the reading and writing processes will be split between various drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance could differ depending on the particular setup - whether your data is written on all the drives real-time or it is written on one drive and afterwards mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Shared Web Hosting
The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud hosting platform uses for storage work in RAID-Z. This kind of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it employs the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where information saved on the other drives is cloned with an extra bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks fails, your sites will continue working from the other ones and after we replace the problematic one, the info that will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives along with the info from the parity disk. This is performed in order to be able to recalculate the elements of every single file adequately and to verify the integrity of the data duplicated on the new drive. This is an additional level of security for the information you upload to your shared web hosting account together with the ZFS file system that analyzes a special digital fingerprint for each and every file on all the disk drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type which we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account will be created is called RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least one of the disks is used as a parity drive. Simply put, whenever any data is cloned on this specific disk drive, one more bit is added to it and in case a malfunctioning disk is changed, the information which will be cloned on it is a mix of the data on the other hard disks in the RAID and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that your info is intact. Throughout this process, your websites will be functioning normally because RAID-Z makes it possible for an entire drive to fail without causing any service disturbances and it simply works by using one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Employing RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that no data will get silently corrupted on our servers, you'll never need to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
If you take advantage of one of our virtual private server solutions, any content which you upload will be kept on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least one drive is used for parity so as to guarantee the integrity of the info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where information is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk in the RAID stops functioning, your sites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the flawed one, the bits of the data that will be copied on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is avoided. We also employ ordinary hard disk drives that work in RAID for storing backup copies, so should you include this service to your VPS plan, your website content will be kept on multiple drives and you will never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.