RAID, which stands short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that makes it possible for a system to use several hard drives as a single logical unit. Put simply, all the drives are used as one and the information on all of them is identical. Such a configuration has two major advantages over using a single drive to save data - the first one is redundancy, so if one drive breaks down, the info will be accessed from the others, and the second is improved performance as the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among multiple drives. There are different RAID types in accordance with what number of drives are employed, if reading and writing are both done from all drives at the same time, if data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, and many others. Determined by the particular setup, the error tolerance and the performance could differ.
RAID in Cloud Web Hosting
The revolutionary cloud hosting platform where all cloud web hosting accounts are made employs fast NVMe drives as opposed to the standard HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this setup, multiple hard disks function together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. In simple terms, when data is written on the other drives, it is duplicated 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 information can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data saved on the other ones, thus nothing will be lost and there won't be any service disturbances. This is an additional level of protection for your data together with the state-of-the-art ZFS file system which uses checksums to guarantee that all the data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives which are used for keeping any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we provide operate in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more disk drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data cloned on such a drive. If a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what data will be duplicated on the latter will be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the info on the new drive will be correct. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue functioning adequately and the malfunctioning drive will not have an impact on the proper operation of your websites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a fantastic addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our advanced cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses specific digital identifiers referred to as checksums so as to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Hosting
The physical servers where we make virtual private server employ quick NVMe drives that will increase the speed of your sites significantly. The hard disks operate in RAID to make sure that you won't lose any info as a result of a power loss or a hardware breakdown. The production servers work with multiple drives where the info is stored and one disk is used for parity i.e. one bit is added to all the info copied on it, which makes it easier to restore the website content without loss if a main drive stops working. If you use our backup service, the info will be kept on a separate machine which uses standard hard-disk drives and despite the fact that there's no parity one in this case, they are also in a RAID to guarantee that we will have a backup copy of your content at all times. With this type of setup your information will always be safe because it will be available on multiple drives.