RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that makes it possible for a system to take advantage of several hard drives as one single logical unit. Simply put, all of the drives are used as one and the info on all of them is the same. This kind of a setup has 2 major advantages over using a single drive to save data - the first is redundancy, so if one drive stops working, the information will be accessed from the others, and the second is improved performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among multiple drives. There are different RAID types depending on what amount of drives are employed, whether reading and writing are both performed from all the drives simultaneously, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, etc. Depending on the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance could differ.

RAID in Web Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform uses for storage function in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is intended to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it employs the so-called parity disk - a special drive where info kept on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks stops working, your websites will continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the problematic one, the information which will be copied on it will be recovered from what is stored on the other drives as well as the information from the parity disk. This is performed in order to be able to recalculate the elements of each and every file correctly and to authenticate the integrity of the information duplicated on the new drive. This is an additional level of security for the info you upload to your web hosting account in addition to the ZFS file system that analyzes a unique digital fingerprint for each file on all the drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The NVMe drives which are used for storing any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts that we provide operate in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will add an extra bit to any data copied on such a disk drive. In case that a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what data will be duplicated on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the other disks and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the information on the new drive will be accurate. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning adequately and the problematic drive won't affect the adequate operation of your sites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a superb addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses special digital identifiers called checksums to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS

If you employ one of our virtual private server solutions, any content you upload will be saved on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least a single drive is employed for parity so as to ensure the integrity of your info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where data is copied with one bit added to it. If a disk within the RAID stops working, your sites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the faulty one, the bits of the info that will be duplicated on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any chance of corrupting data during the process is avoided. We also use conventional hard disk drives which work in RAID for storing backup copies, so if you include this service to your VPS plan, your content will be stored on multiple drives and you will never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.