RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for storing data on a number hard drives that work together as one single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the second case one single drive is split into independent ones via virtualization software. In any case, the very same data is saved on all drives and the key benefit of using such a setup is that if a drive stops working, the data will remain available on the remaining ones. Having a RAID also enhances the performance because the input and output operations will be spread among a few drives. There are several types 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 info is synchronized between the drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors mean that the error tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types may differ.

RAID in Cloud Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage operate in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it works by using the so-called parity disk - a special drive where information stored on the other drives is duplicated with an extra bit added to it. If one of the disks fails, your sites shall continue working from the other ones and after we replace the problematic one, the information that will be duplicated on it will be recovered from what is stored on the rest of the drives together with the info from the parity disk. This is done in order to be able to recalculate the bits of every file correctly and to confirm the integrity of the data duplicated on the new drive. This is another level of security for the information that you upload to your cloud hosting account along with the ZFS file system which analyzes a unique digital fingerprint for each and every file on all disk drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The information uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is stored on NVMe drives that work in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a configuration is used for parity - whenever data is cloned on it, an additional bit is added. If a disk turns out to be defective, it will be removed from the RAID without disturbing the functioning of the Internet sites since the data will load from the rest of the drives, and when a new drive is included, the info that will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the information on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard drives in the RAID. This is done so as to ensure that the info that is being copied is accurate, so as soon as the new drive is rebuilt, it can be included in the RAID as a production one. This is one more warranty for the integrity of your info as the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud hosting platform analyzes a unique checksum of all of the copies of your files on the different drives so as to avoid any possibility of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Web Hosting

All virtual private server accounts which our company provides are created on physical servers which take advantage of NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity - one extra bit is added to the data cloned on it and if a main disk fails, this bit makes it much simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed disk drive so that the correct info is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your sites will remain online since all the data will still load from at least one more hard drive. If you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of your info will be stored on standard hard drives that also work in RAID because we would like to make certain that any website content you add will be protected all the time. Working with multiple hard drives in RAID for all of the main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable Internet hosting service.