RAID, which is an acronym of Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that permits a system to use several hard drives as one single logical unit. Put simply, all of the drives are used as one and the data on all of them is identical. This kind of a setup has 2 huge advantages over using just a single drive to store data - the first is redundancy, so if one drive breaks down, the data will be accessed through the others, and the second is improved performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be distributed among multiple drives. You can find different RAID types in accordance with the number of drives are used, if reading and writing are both done from all drives at the same time, 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 fault tolerance and the performance vary.

RAID in Shared Website Hosting

Our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform where all shared website hosting accounts are generated uses fast NVMe drives as an alternative to the traditional HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this configuration, numerous hard disks work together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the other drives, it's duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even in case some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the info can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data saved on the other ones, therefore not a single thing will be lost and there will be no service disturbances. This is an additional level of security for your info along with the cutting-edge ZFS file system that uses checksums to ensure that all data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives which are used for keeping any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we offer function in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup where one or more hard drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data cloned on such a drive. In case that a disk fails and is substituted with a new one, what data will be copied on the latter will be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining disks and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the info on the new drive will be accurate. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the malfunctioning drive won't have an effect on the proper operation of your Internet sites in any way. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our advanced cloud platform with respect to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses specific digital identifiers called checksums to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts which our company provides are generated on physical servers which employ NVMe drives working in RAID. At least one drive is employed for parity - one extra bit is added to the information cloned on it and if a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged hard disk so that the accurate data is restored on the new drive included in the RAID. At the same time, your sites will still be online because all the data will still load from at least 1 more hard drive. In the event that you add routine backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the data will be kept on standard hard drives which also function in RAID because we want to make sure that any content you add will be protected all of the time. Using multiple hard drives in RAID for all of the main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.