Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of saving content on a number of hard disk drives concurrently. A RAID might be software or hardware based on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, still what’s common between them is that they all operate as just one single unit where info is saved. The key advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the data on all of the drives will be identical all the time, so even if one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the information will still be present on the remaining drives. The general performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes could be split between multiple drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance may vary based on the particular setup - whether your data is written on all drives in real time or it is written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.
RAID in Website Hosting
Our state-of-the-art cloud Internet hosting platform where all website hosting accounts are made uses quick NVMe drives as an alternative to the classic HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this setup, numerous hard disk drives function together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the remaining drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is carried out for redundancy as even in case some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the data can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data saved on the other ones, which means that nothing will be lost and there will be no service interruptions. This is one more level of protection for your information in addition to the top-notch ZFS file system which uses checksums to guarantee that all the data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type that we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is known as RAID-Z. What is different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is employed as a parity drive. Put simply, whenever any data is copied on this specific drive, one more bit is added to it and in case a malfunctioning disk is replaced, the data which will be cloned on it is a combination of the data on the remaining hard drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that your information is intact. During this process, your Internet sites will be functioning normally because RAID-Z allows for an entire drive to fail without causing any service interruptions and it simply works by using one of the other ones as the main production drive. Employing RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that no data shall get silently corrupted on our servers, you will never need to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
In case you employ one of our virtual private server solutions, any content you upload will be saved on NVMe drives that operate in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity to guarantee the integrity of your data. In simple terms, this is a special drive where information is copied with one bit added to it. If a disk from the RAID stops working, your websites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the defective one, the bits of the information that will be copied on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any probability of corrupting data throughout the process is prevented. We also employ standard hard disks which operate in RAID for storing backup copies, so should you include this service to your VPS package, your content will be saved on multiple drives and you'll never need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.