RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that enables a system to use multiple hard drives as one single logical unit. Simply put, all the drives are used as one and the data on all of them is identical. Such a setup has two huge advantages over using just a single drive to save data - the first one is redundancy, so if one drive breaks down, the information will be accessible from the others, and the second one is improved performance as the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be distributed among several drives. There are different RAID types based on what number of drives are used, if reading and writing are both handled 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, and so on. Based on the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance may differ.

RAID in Shared Website Hosting

The cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform where all shared website hosting accounts are made employs quick NVMe drives as an alternative to the traditional HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this setup, numerous hard disk drives function together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. In simple terms, when data is written on the rest of the drives, it's copied on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is performed for redundancy as even if some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the data can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data stored on the other ones, so not a thing will be lost and there won't be any service interruptions. This is another level of protection for your data in addition to the cutting-edge ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that all data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives which are used for storing any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we provide work in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data copied on this kind of a hard drive. In case that a disk fails and is replaced with a new one, what information will be cloned on the latter will be a mix calculated between the data on the other drives and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the data on the new drive shall be correct. During the procedure, the RAID will continue operating adequately and the malfunctioning drive will not have an effect on the proper operation of your websites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an outstanding addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses special digital identifiers known as checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts that we offer are made on physical servers that use NVMe drives operating in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity - one additional bit is added to the info copied on it and if a main disk fails, this bit makes it much easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed disk drive so that the right information is recovered on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your Internet sites will still be online because all the data will still load from at least one other hard disk. In case you add routine backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the information will be stored on standard disk drives that also operate in RAID because we would like to make sure that any type of website content you upload will be protected all the time. Working with multiple hard drives in RAID for all the main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.