Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on several hard drives concurrently. A RAID might be software or hardware based on the drives that are used - physical or logical ones, yet what’s common between them is that they all perform as a single unit where data is kept. The key advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy because the info on all the drives will be the same all the time, so even in case one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the information will still be present on the other drives. The general performance will also improve because the reading and writing processes can be split between multiple drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance could differ based on the specific setup - whether info is written on all drives in real time or it is written on one drive and afterwards mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Cloud Web Hosting
The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform uses for storage work in RAID-Z. This kind of RAID is intended 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 located on the other drives is duplicated with an additional bit added to it. If one of the disks fails, your websites will continue working from the other ones and after we replace the malfunctioning one, the info which will be copied on it will be recovered from what is stored on the other drives along with the data from the parity disk. This is performed so as to be able to recalculate the elements of every single file properly and to authenticate the integrity of the data copied on the new drive. This is another level of security for the content which you upload to your cloud web hosting account along with the ZFS file system that analyzes a special digital fingerprint for each and every file on all hard drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives that are used for saving any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts that we provide operate in RAID-Z. This is a specific configuration where one or more hard drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data cloned on this type of a disk drive. In case that a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what data will be copied 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 info on the new drive will be correct. During the procedure, the RAID will continue operating normally and the malfunctioning drive will not affect the proper operation of your websites by any means. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses special digital identifiers referred to as checksums so as to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Hosting
If you use one of our virtual private server solutions, any content you upload will be kept on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least a single drive is employed for parity to guarantee the integrity of your info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where information is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk part of the RAID stops functioning, your Internet sites will continue working and when a new disk substitutes the malfunctioning one, the bits of the info that will be copied on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any chance of corrupting data during the process is avoided. We also employ standard hard disks which work in RAID for storing backups, so if you add this service to your VPS plan, your content will be kept on multiple drives and you won't ever need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.