RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of storing data on several hard disks that operate together as a single logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the second case one single drive is split into individual ones using virtualization software. In either case, exactly the same data is stored on all of the drives and the main advantage of using this type of a setup is that in the event that a drive fails, the data will remain available on the remaining ones. Having a RAID also enhances the performance because the input and output operations will be spread among several drives. There are several kinds of RAID dependant upon how many hard disks are used, whether writing is performed on all drives in real time or just on one, and how the information is synchronized between the hard drives - whether it's written in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors imply that the error tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types can differ.

RAID in Cloud Hosting

The state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform where all cloud hosting accounts are created uses fast NVMe drives as an alternative to the classic HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this setup, several hard disks function together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Simply put, when data is written on the remaining drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is carried out for redundancy as even in case a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the data can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, which means that not a single thing will be lost and there will not be any service disturbances. This is another level of security for your data together with the top-notch ZFS file system which uses checksums to ensure that all data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

In case you host your Internet sites inside a semi-dedicated hosting account from our company, all of the content that you upload will be held on NVMe drives which work in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least one of the hard disks is employed for parity - when data is synced between the drives, an additional bit is added to it on the parity one. The purpose behind this is to guarantee the integrity of the info which is cloned to a new drive in case one of the drives in the RAID stops functioning as the site content being copied on the brand new disk is recalculated from the data on the standard drives and on the parity one. Another advantage of RAID-Z is that even in the event that a disk drive stops working, the system could switch to a different one immediately without service interruptions of any kind. RAID-Z adds one more level of security for the content which you upload on our cloud Internet hosting platform together with the ZFS file system that uses unique checksums so as to verify the integrity of each and every file.

RAID in VPS Hosting

All virtual private server accounts that our company offers are generated on physical servers that employ NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is used for parity - one additional bit is added to the information duplicated 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 accurate information is restored on the new drive included in the RAID. At the same time, your websites will remain online since all the information will still load from at least 1 more hard drive. In the event that you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of your information will be kept on standard hard drives which also work in RAID because we would like to make certain that any kind of website content you add will be protected all the time. Using multiple hard drives in RAID for all main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable Internet hosting service.