Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on a number of hard disks simultaneously. A RAID can be software or hardware depending on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, yet what is common between them is that they all work as one single unit where info is kept. The top advantage of using a RAID is redundancy since the information on all the drives shall be identical at all times, so even in the event that one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the information will still be present on the other drives. The general performance is also enhanced since the reading and writing processes can be split between multiple drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There are different kinds of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance can vary based on the specific setup - whether data is written on all drives in real time or it is written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Shared Hosting

The SSD drives which our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage function in RAID-Z. This kind 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 info saved on the other drives is copied with an additional bit added to it. If one of the disks stops working, your Internet sites will continue working from the other ones and once we replace the malfunctioning one, the information which will be duplicated on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the other drives together with the information from the parity disk. This is done so as to be able to recalculate the elements of each file correctly and to authenticate the integrity of the info duplicated on the new drive. This is another level of security for the content which you upload to your shared hosting account along with the ZFS file system that compares a unique digital fingerprint for each and every file on all the disk drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is kept on SSD drives which operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in such a configuration is used for parity - every time data is copied on it, an extra bit is added. In case a disk turns out to be faulty, it will be removed from the RAID without interrupting the functioning of the Internet sites since the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the info which will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the info on the parity disk and data saved on the other hard drives in the RAID. This is done so as to guarantee that the data that is being cloned is correct, so once the new drive is rebuilt, it can be included in the RAID as a production one. This is one more warranty for the integrity of your info since the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform compares a special checksum of all copies of the files on the separate drives to be able to avoid any probability of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts which our company offers are generated on physical servers which take advantage of SSD drives functioning in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity - one additional bit is added to the data copied on it and in case a main disk fails, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged hard disk so that the accurate data is recovered on the new drive added to the RAID. Meanwhile, your websites will stay online as all the information will still load from at least one other hard drive. In the event that you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the information will be kept on standard disk drives that also operate in RAID because we would like to make certain that any kind of website content you upload will be safe and sound all of the time. Employing multiple hard drives in RAID for all main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable web hosting service.