Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of storing content on multiple hard drives simultaneously. A RAID can be software or hardware based on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, still what’s common between them is the fact that they all operate as a single unit where your information is kept. The main advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the data on all of the drives shall be the same all the time, so even if one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the data will still be available on the other drives. The overall performance is also enhanced since the reading and writing processes can be split between multiple drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the efficiency and fault tolerance may differ depending on the exact setup - whether information is written on all the drives real-time or it is written on a single drive and after that mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.

RAID in Cloud Website Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage function in RAID-Z. This sort of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it employs the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where info saved on the other drives is duplicated with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks fails, your websites will continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the problematic one, the info that will be cloned on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the remaining drives together with the data from the parity disk. This is performed so as to be able to recalculate the elements of each and every file correctly and to confirm the integrity of the information duplicated on the new drive. This is one more level of security for the info you upload to your cloud website hosting account in addition to the ZFS file system which compares a special digital fingerprint for each file on all the disk drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The RAID type which we employ for the cloud web hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is named RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is employed as a parity drive. Put simply, whenever any kind of data is duplicated on this particular disk drive, one more bit is added to it and in the event that a defective disk is replaced, the info 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. We do this to ensure that your information is intact. Throughout this process, your sites will be functioning normally because RAID-Z enables an entire drive to fail without service interruptions and it simply works by using one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to warrant that no data can get silently corrupted on our servers, you'll never need to worry about the integrity of your files.

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 at all times. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of data is added to any data cloned on it. In the event that a main drive stops working, it is changed and the data which will be cloned on it is calculated between the other drives and the parity one. This is done to make sure that the right data is copied and that no file is corrupted as the new drive will be included in the RAID afterwards. In addition, we use hard drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you will use an even more reliable Internet hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any unexpected hardware failure.