RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of saving data on multiple hard disk drives that operate together as one single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the aforementioned case one single drive is divided into separate ones via virtualization software. In any case, identical information is saved on all of the drives and the key benefit of using this type of a setup is that in the event that a drive fails, the data shall still be available on the remaining ones. Using a RAID also enhances the performance since the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several types of RAID based on how many hard disks are used, whether writing is done on all drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the info is synchronized between the hard drives - whether it's recorded in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. These factors imply that the error tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types may vary.

RAID in Web Hosting

The NVMe drives which our cutting-edge cloud hosting platform uses for storage function in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it uses the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where info stored on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks fails, your websites will continue working from the other ones and once we replace the bad one, the info that will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives together with the data from the parity disk. This is done so as to be able to recalculate the bits of every single file adequately and to authenticate the integrity of the data cloned on the new drive. This is an additional level of security for the info that you upload to your web hosting account along with the ZFS file system which compares a unique digital fingerprint for every single file on all the disk drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you host your websites in a semi-dedicated server account from our firm, all of the content you upload will be stored on NVMe drives which operate in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least 1 of the disks is employed for parity - when data is synced between the disks, an extra bit is included in it on the parity one. The reasoning behind this is to ensure the integrity of the information that is copied to a new drive if one of the hard drives in the RAID breaks down as the content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the information on the standard drives and on the parity one. An additional advantage of RAID-Z is that even if a disk drive stops working, the system could switch to another one immediately without service disruptions of any kind. RAID-Z adds an additional level of protection for the content which you upload on our cloud Internet hosting platform along with the ZFS file system that uses unique checksums as a way to authenticate the integrity of each file.

RAID in VPS Servers

In case you use one of our VPS server solutions, any content which you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which operate in RAID. At least 1 drive is used for parity to guarantee the integrity of the data. In simple terms, this is a special drive where information is copied with one bit added to it. In the event that a disk from the RAID stops working, your websites will continue working and when a new disk substitutes the malfunctioning one, the bits of the information that will be cloned on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. By doing this, any potential for corrupting data throughout the process is prevented. We also use conventional hard drives which operate in RAID for storing backup copies, so if you add 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.