Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on multiple hard disk drives at the same time. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the drives that are used - physical or logical ones, still what is common between them is the fact that they all work as just a single unit where your information is kept. The top advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the data on all of the drives is the same at all times, so even in the event that one of the drives fails for some reason, the information will still be available on the rest of the drives. The general performance is also better because the reading and writing processes could be split between multiple drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There are different sorts of RAIDs where the efficiency and fault tolerance can vary according to the exact setup - whether information is written on all of the drives real-time or it's written on one drive and then mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
All the content that you upload to your new cloud hosting account will be stored on fast NVMe drives that function in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to work with the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud web hosting platform and it adds an additional level of protection for your site content on top of the real-time checksum authentication that ZFS uses to ensure the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the data is stored on a number of disks and at least one of them is a parity disk - whenever info is recorded on it, an additional bit is added, so in the event that any drive stops functioning for some reason, the integrity of the data can be verified by recalculating its bits based on what is kept 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 working effectively until the problematic drive is changed and the information is synchronized on it.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives which are used for keeping any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer work in RAID-Z. This is a specific configuration where one or more drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data cloned on this type of a hard drive. If a disk fails and is substituted with a new one, what data will be copied on the latter will be a combination calculated between the data on the other disks and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the information on the new drive will be correct. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the faulty drive will not have an impact on the adequate operation of your sites in any way. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an excellent addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses unique digital identifiers named checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS
The physical servers where we generate virtual private server use super fast NVMe drives which will raise the speed of your Internet sites considerably. The drives operate in RAID to make sure that you won't lose any info as a result of a power loss or a hardware breakdown. The production servers employ multiple drives where the data is kept and one disk is used for parity i.e. one bit is added to all of the information copied on it, that makes it easier to recover the website content without loss in the event a main drive stops working. In case you pick our backup service, the information will be saved on a separate machine which uses standard hard-disk drives and although there's no parity one in this case, they are also in a RAID to make sure that we will have a backup copy of your site content all of the time. With this type of setup your info will always be safe because it will be available on multiple drives.