Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of saving content on a number of hard disk drives at the same time. A RAID can be software or hardware based on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is the fact that they all function as a single unit where info is kept. The top advantage of using a RAID is redundancy since the data on all of the drives shall be the same at all times, so even in case some drive fails for some reason, the info will still be present on the remaining drives. The general performance is also better since the reading and writing processes can be split between various drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the effectiveness and fault tolerance can vary depending on the specific setup - whether your data is written on all the drives in real time or it is written on a single drive and after that mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.

RAID in Shared Website Hosting

The SSD drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform employs for storage function in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is developed to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it takes advantage of the so-called parity disk - a special drive where info saved on the other drives is cloned with an extra bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks stops functioning, your Internet sites shall continue working from the other ones and after we replace the faulty one, the info which will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives together with the information from the parity disk. This is performed in order to be able to recalculate the bits of every single file properly and to authenticate the integrity of the info cloned on the new drive. This is another level of security for the content that you upload to your shared website hosting account along with the ZFS file system that compares a special digital fingerprint for every single file on all of the drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The SSD drives which are used for saving any website content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we provide function in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more disk drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an extra bit to any data cloned on such a drive. If a disk fails and is replaced with a new one, what information will be duplicated on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the other drives and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the information on the new drive will be correct. During the procedure, the RAID will continue operating adequately and the problematic drive will not have an effect on the adequate operation of your sites by any means. Using SSDs in RAID-Z is an amazing addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses specific digital identifiers called checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Hosting

The physical servers where we make virtual private server employ super fast SSD drives which will boost the speed of your websites considerably. The hard drives function in RAID to ensure that you will not lose any information as a result of a power loss or a hardware breakdown. The production servers employ multiple drives where the data is stored and one disk is used for parity i.e. one bit is added to all info copied on it, that makes it easier to restore the site content without any loss if a main drive stops working. If you take advantage of our backup service, the information will be stored on a separate machine which uses standard hard-disk drives and despite the fact that there is no parity one in this case, they are also in a RAID to guarantee that we will have a backup of your website content all of the time. With this particular configuration your data will always be safe as it will be available on several drives.