RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of saving data on multiple hard disks which operate together as one single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case one single drive is divided into separate ones through virtualization software. Either way, the very same data is stored on all of the drives and the key advantage of using this kind of a setup is that in the event that a drive breaks down, the data will still be available on the other ones. Using a RAID also boosts the performance as the input and output operations will be spread among a few drives. There are several types of RAID depending on how many drives are used, whether writing is performed on all the drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the data is synchronized between the drives - whether it's written in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors mean that the fault tolerance and the performance between the different RAID types could differ.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
The SSD drives which our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform employs for storage operate in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is intended 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 saved on the other drives is copied with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks stops functioning, your Internet sites shall continue working from the other ones and after we replace the faulty one, the data which will be cloned on it will be recovered from what is stored on the remaining drives along with the info from the parity disk. This is performed so as to be able to recalculate the elements of each file adequately and to validate the integrity of the info duplicated on the new drive. This is one more level of security for the information that you upload to your cloud hosting account along with the ZFS file system that analyzes a unique digital fingerprint for every single file on all the hard drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
In case you host your Internet sites in a semi-dedicated hosting account from our company, any content you upload will be kept on SSD drives that work in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least one of the disks is used for parity - when data is synced between the disks, an additional bit is included in it on the parity one. The purpose behind this is to ensure the integrity of the information that is duplicated to a new drive in the event that one of the disks in the RAID fails because the website content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the data on the standard hard drives and on the parity one. An additional advantage of RAID-Z is the fact that even in the event that a hard drive stops functioning, the system could switch to a different one immediately without service disruptions of any type. RAID-Z adds an extra level of protection for the content that you upload on our cloud hosting platform in addition to the ZFS file system which uses unique checksums to validate the integrity of each and every file.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
The SSD drives which we use on the machines where we generate virtual private servers function in RAID to ensure that any content which you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least 1 drive is used for parity - one bit of data is added to any data copied on it. If a main drive stops working, it is replaced and the data which will be cloned on it is calculated between the remaining drives and the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the required information is copied and that no file is corrupted as the new drive will be included in the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard drives functioning in RAID on the backup servers, so if you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you'll use an even more reliable Internet hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any unforeseen hardware failure.