Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on multiple hard disks simultaneously. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, however what is common between them is the fact that they all function as just a single unit where data is kept. The main advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the information on all of the drives is the same all of the time, so even in case some drive fails for some reason, the info will still be available on the other drives. The general performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes will be split between different drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the effectiveness and fault tolerance may differ depending on the exact setup - whether data is written on all of the drives 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, and so on.

RAID in Cloud Web Hosting

The drives that we employ for storage with our innovative cloud web hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but extremely fast solid-state drives (SSD). They work in RAID-Z - a special setup created for the ZFS file system which we use. All the content that you add to your cloud web hosting account will be kept on multiple hard drives and at least 1 will be used as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where an additional bit is included to any content copied on it. In case a disk in the RAID fails, it'll be replaced with no service disturbances and the info will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk plus that on the other disks. This is done so as to ensure the integrity of the data and along with the real-time checksum authentication that the ZFS file system performs on all drives, you will never have to be concerned about losing any information no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is stored on SSD drives which work in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a configuration is used for parity - whenever data is cloned on it, an additional bit is added. If a disk turns out to be flawed, it will be removed from the RAID without disturbing the work of the sites as the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a new drive is included, the data that will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the data on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard drives in the RAID. This is done so as to guarantee that the info that is being duplicated is accurate, so the moment the new drive is rebuilt, it could be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is one more warranty for the integrity of your data since the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud web hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all the copies of your files on the different drives so as to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts which our company provides are created on physical servers which employ SSD drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is employed for parity - one additional bit is added to the data cloned on it and if a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed disk drive so that the correct data is restored on the new drive included in the RAID. At the same time, your websites will still be online because all the info will still load from at least one more disk drive. In case you add regular backups to your VPS package, a copy of your data will be kept on standard hard drives which also operate in RAID because we want to make certain that any site content you add will be protected at all times. Employing multiple hard drives in RAID for all of the main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.