Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of storing content on several hard drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, still what’s common between them is that they all work as just a single unit where info is stored. The biggest advantage of using a RAID is redundancy since the information on all drives will be exactly the same at all times, so even if a drive fails for some reason, the data will still be present on the rest of the drives. The general performance is enhanced as well since the reading and writing processes will be split between various drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different kinds of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance could differ based on the exact setup - whether your data is written on all drives real-time or it is written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.

RAID in Web Hosting

The SSD drives which our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage operate in RAID-Z. This kind of RAID is designed to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it uses the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where data stored on the other drives is copied with an extra bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks stops working, your websites shall continue working from the other ones and as soon as 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 information from the parity disk. This is done in order to be able to recalculate the bits of each file correctly and to authenticate the integrity of the data duplicated on the new drive. This is one more level of security for the info that you upload to your web hosting account along with the ZFS file system which analyzes a special digital fingerprint for each file on all of the drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you host your websites within a semi-dedicated server account from our firm, all of the content that you upload will be stored on SSD drives that work in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least 1 of the hard disks is used for parity - when data is synchronized between the disks, an additional bit is included in it on the parity one. The idea behind this is to guarantee the integrity of the data which is duplicated to a brand new drive in the event that one of the hard drives in the RAID fails because the website content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the info on the standard drives and on the parity one. An additional advantage of RAID-Z is the fact that even in the event that a hard drive fails, the system can switch to another one immediately without service disruptions of any sort. RAID-Z adds one more level of protection for the content you upload on our cloud hosting platform together with the ZFS file system which uses unique checksums in order to authenticate the integrity of each file.

RAID in VPS Servers

If you employ one of our VPS server packages, any content you upload will be stored on SSD drives which function in RAID. At least a single drive is intended for parity to guarantee the integrity of your information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info 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 flawed one, the bits of the info that will be duplicated on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any probability of corrupting data throughout the process is averted. We also employ regular hard drives which work in RAID for storing backup copies, so if you include this service to your VPS plan, your website content will be stored on multiple drives and you will never need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.