RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of storing data on several hard drives that work together as one single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case a single drive is divided into different ones via virtualization software. Either way, identical data is stored on all the drives and the key benefit of using this type of a setup is that in case a drive breaks down, the data will still be available on the remaining ones. Employing a RAID also improves the performance because the input and output operations will be spread among several drives. There are several types of RAID depending on how many drives are used, whether writing is carried out on all drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the data is synchronized between the drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors suggest that the fault tolerance and the performance between the different RAID types could differ.
RAID in Shared Website Hosting
All content that you upload to your new shared website hosting account will be saved on quick NVMe drives that work in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to work with the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud hosting platform and it adds another level of protection for your website content in addition to the real-time checksum validation that ZFS uses to guarantee the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the information is stored on a number of disks and at least 1 is a parity disk - whenever information is written on it, an additional bit is added, so if any drive stops working for whatever reason, the stability of the info can be verified by recalculating its bits in accordance with what is stored on the production hard disks and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the functioning of our system will never be interrupted and it will continue functioning efficiently until the problematic drive is changed and the info is synchronized on it.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The NVMe drives that are used for keeping any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we provide work in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more disk drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data cloned on this type of a drive. In the event that a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what info will be copied on the latter will be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining disks and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the information on the new drive will be correct. During the process, the RAID will continue operating adequately and the faulty drive will not affect the adequate operation of your Internet sites in any way. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is a fantastic addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses unique digital identifiers known as checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
If you use one of our VPS server packages, any content which you upload will be stored on NVMe drives that operate in RAID. At least 1 drive is employed for parity so as 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 case a disk inside the RAID stops functioning, your Internet sites will continue working and when a new disk substitutes the defective one, the bits of the information that will be cloned on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any possibility of corrupting data throughout the process is prevented. We also employ standard hard disks that work in RAID for storing backups, so if you include this service to your VPS package, your content will be saved on multiple drives and you will never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.