RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of storing data on several hard disk drives that operate together as one logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case one single drive is split into individual ones via virtualization software. In either case, the very same info is stored on all the drives and the basic benefit of using this type of a setup is that in case a drive stops working, the data will still be available on the other ones. Having a RAID also boosts the performance because the input and output operations will be spread among several drives. There are several kinds of RAID based on how many hard disks are used, whether writing is performed on all of the drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the info is synced 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. These factors mean that the error tolerance as well as the performance between the different RAID types can differ.

RAID in Shared Hosting

The drives which we use for storage with our innovative cloud hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They operate in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system which we work with. All of the content that you upload to the shared hosting account will be saved on multiple hard drives and at least one shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a special drive where an extra bit is added to any content copied on it. In case a disk in the RAID stops functioning, it'll be changed with no service interruptions and the information will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk along with that on the other disks. This is done to ensure the integrity of the information and along with the real-time checksum validation that the ZFS file system performs on all drives, you won't ever need to be concerned about losing any info no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The RAID type which we employ for the cloud web hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is known as RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least one of the disks is employed as a parity drive. In simple terms, whenever any kind of data is cloned on this particular disk drive, one more bit is added to it and if a malfunctioning disk is replaced, the info that will be copied on it is a combination of the data on the remaining hard disks in the RAID and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the info is intact. During this process, your Internet sites will be functioning normally as RAID-Z enables a whole drive to fail without service disruptions and it simply uses one of the other ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that no data will get silently corrupted on our servers, you will not need to worry about the integrity of your files.

RAID in VPS

If you use one of our virtual private server plans, any content which you upload will be saved on NVMe drives which function in RAID. At least a single drive is employed for parity so as to ensure the integrity of the info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk within the RAID stops working, your sites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the defective one, the bits of the data that will be copied on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any possibility of corrupting data during the process is prevented. We also use ordinary hard disk drives that function in RAID for storing backup copies, so in case you include this service to your VPS package, your website content will be stored on multiple drives and you won't ever have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.