RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology which enables a system to employ multiple hard drives as one single logical unit. In other words, all of the drives are used as one and the information on all of them is the same. This kind of a configuration has two key advantages over using just a single drive to save data - the first is redundancy, so if one drive fails, the data will be accessed from the others, and the second one is improved performance as the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among several drives. There're different RAID types in accordance with the number of drives are used, whether reading and writing are both performed from all of the drives at the same time, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, etcetera. Based on the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance may vary.

RAID in Shared Hosting

The drives which we use for storage with our top-notch cloud web hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They function in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system which we employ. All the content that you add to the shared hosting account will be stored on multiple disk drives and at least one of them will be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where a further bit is included to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID fails, it will be changed without service disturbances and the information will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk plus that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to guarantee the integrity of the data and together with the real-time checksum verification that the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you'll never need to concern yourself with losing any information no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The RAID type which we use for the cloud web hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account will be created is referred to as RAID-Z. What is different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is used as a parity drive. Put simply, whenever any data is duplicated on this special disk drive, one more bit is added to it and in case a faulty disk is replaced, the info which will be cloned on it is a combination of the data on the remaining hard disks in the RAID and that on the parity one. We do this to ensure that the information is intact. During this process, your websites will be up and running normally as RAID-Z makes it possible for a whole drive to fail without service interruptions and it simply uses one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system which uses checksums to warrant that no data can get silently corrupted on our servers, you will never need to worry about the integrity of your files.

RAID in VPS

The NVMe drives that we use on the machines where we set up virtual private servers function in RAID to make sure that any content which you upload will be available and intact at all times. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of info is added to any data cloned on it. In case a main drive breaks down, it is replaced and the info which will be duplicated on it is calculated between the rest of the drives and the parity one. This is done to ensure that the required data is copied and that no file is corrupted as the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. We also use hard disk drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS package, you'll use an even more reliable Internet hosting service because your content will be available on multiple drives regardless of any sort of unforeseen hardware malfunction.