RAID, which is an acronym of Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology which makes it possible for a system to employ several hard drives as one single logical unit. Simply put, all drives are used as one and the info on all of them is identical. This kind of a setup has two huge advantages over using a single drive to keep data - the first is redundancy, so in case one drive breaks down, the data will be accessed through the remaining ones, and the second one is improved performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among multiple drives. There are different RAID types depending on the number of drives are employed, if reading and writing are both done from all the drives concurrently, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, and many others. Depending on the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance vary.

RAID in Shared Hosting

The hard drives that we use for storage with our ground-breaking cloud Internet hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but extremely fast NVMes. They work in RAID-Z - a special setup intended for the ZFS file system that we employ. All of the content that you add to the shared hosting account will be kept on multiple drives and at least one of them shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where an extra bit is added to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops working, it'll be replaced without any service disruptions and the info will be recovered on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk along with that on the remaining disks. This is done to guarantee the integrity of the data and together with the real-time checksum authentication which the ZFS file system runs on all drives, you won't ever have to be concerned about the loss of any info no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The NVMe drives that are used for keeping any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts that we provide function in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup where one or more disk drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data copied on this kind of a drive. In the event that a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what data will be duplicated on the latter shall 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 accurate. During the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning adequately and the malfunctioning drive won't affect the adequate operation of your Internet sites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an amazing addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses specific digital identifiers called checksums so as to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Web Hosting

The NVMe drives that we use on the physical machines where we set up virtual private servers operate in RAID to ensure that any content which you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of information is added to any data cloned on it. In the event that a main drive breaks down, it is replaced and the data that will be cloned on it is calculated between the rest of the drives and the parity one. This is done to ensure that the right information is copied and that no file is corrupted since the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. In addition, we use hard disk drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you shall use an even more reliable Internet hosting service because your content will be available on multiple drives regardless of any unpredicted hardware failure.