Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of storing content on several hard drives at the same time. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the HDDs which are used - physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is that they all work as one single unit where information is stored. The main advantage of using a RAID is redundancy since the data on all of the drives will be identical all the time, so even in the event that a drive fails for some reason, the data will still be present on the rest of the drives. The general performance is enhanced as well as the reading and writing processes could be split between multiple drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different kinds of RAIDs where the efficiency and fault tolerance could differ according to the exact setup - whether info is written on all the drives in real time or it's written on one drive and then mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform employs for storage operate in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it uses the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where info saved on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. If one of the disks fails, your websites will continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the malfunctioning one, the data that will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives together with the data from the parity disk. This is done so as to be able to recalculate the bits of each file correctly and to confirm the integrity of the information copied on the new drive. This is an additional level of security for the info which you upload to your cloud hosting account together with the ZFS file system that analyzes a special digital fingerprint for every single file on all of the hard drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The information uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is stored on NVMe drives which function in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a configuration is used for parity - every time data is cloned on it, an additional bit is added. In case a disk happens to be defective, it will be removed from the RAID without interrupting the operation of the websites since the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a brand new drive is included, the data which will be cloned on it will be a mix between the info on the parity disk and data saved on the other hard disks in the RAID. This is done so as to ensure that the information which is being copied is correct, so the moment the new drive is rebuilt, it can be included in the RAID as a production one. This is an additional warranty for the integrity of your info since the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform analyzes a unique checksum of all the copies of the files on the different drives so as to avoid any probability of silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Hosting
In case you take advantage of one of our virtual private server plans, any content that you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which operate in RAID. At least 1 drive is employed for parity so as to guarantee the integrity of the data. In simple terms, this is a special drive where data is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk from the RAID fails, your websites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the flawed one, the bits of the information that will be cloned on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any probability of corrupting data during the process is averted. We also employ regular hard disks that operate in RAID for storing backups, so if you include this service to your VPS package, your website content will be stored on multiple drives and you will never need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.