Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of storing content on a number of hard disk drives simultaneously. A RAID can be software or hardware depending on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, but what is common between them is the fact that they all work as just a single unit where your information is kept. The biggest advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the info on all drives is exactly the same all the time, so even in the event that a drive fails for some reason, the info will still be present on the remaining drives. The overall performance is also better because the reading and writing processes can be split between a number of drives, so a single one will not be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance could differ based on the specific setup - whether data is written on all of the drives in real time or it's written on one drive and afterwards mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform employs for storage operate in RAID-Z. This sort of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it works by using the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where information stored on the other drives is copied with an additional bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks stops functioning, your websites shall continue working from the other ones and after we replace the bad one, the information which will be copied on it will be recovered from what is stored on the other drives together with the info from the parity disk. This is done so as to be able to recalculate the elements of each file properly and to confirm the integrity of the information cloned on the new drive. This is one more level of security for the information that you upload to your cloud hosting account in addition to the ZFS file system that compares a special digital fingerprint for each and every file on all of the hard drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
In case you host your websites in a semi-dedicated hosting account from our firm, all of the content that you upload will be held on NVMe drives which operate in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least one of the drives is used for parity - when data is synced between the disks, an extra 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 if one of the disks in the RAID breaks down since the content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the data on the standard disk drives and on the parity one. Another advantage of RAID-Z is that even in case a drive fails, the system can easily switch to a different one quickly without service disturbances of any type. RAID-Z adds an extra level of protection for the content you upload on our cloud web hosting platform in addition to the ZFS file system that uses unique checksums as a way to verify the integrity of each file.
RAID in VPS
All virtual private server accounts which our company offers are generated on physical servers which employ NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity - one additional bit is added to the information copied on it and in case a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it much simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed drive so that the correct information is restored on the new drive included in the RAID. Meanwhile, your Internet sites will still be online as all the information will still load from at least one more drive. In the event that you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the information will be kept on standard hard disks that also work in RAID because we would like to make certain that any kind of content you add will be safe and sound at all times. Using multiple drives in RAID for all main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable web hosting service.