RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of storing data on several hard drives which work together as one single logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the aforementioned case one single drive is divided into individual ones using virtualization software. Either way, the very same info is saved on all drives and the basic benefit of using this kind of a setup is that in the event that a drive stops working, the data will still be available on the other ones. Having a RAID also enhances the performance since the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several types of RAID dependant upon how many drives are used, whether writing is done on all drives in real time or just on one, and how the data is synchronized between the hard drives - whether it is recorded in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. These factors suggest that the fault tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types may vary.
RAID in Shared Web Hosting
All content which you upload to your new shared web hosting account will be held on quick NVMe drives that work in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to work with the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud web hosting platform and it adds another level of protection for your site content in addition to the real-time checksum validation which ZFS uses to guarantee the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the info is saved on a number of disks and at least 1 is a parity disk - whenever information is recorded on it, an extra bit is added, so in case any drive fails for whatever reason, the integrity of the data can be verified by recalculating its bits in accordance with what is kept on the production drives and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the operation of our system will never be interrupted and it will continue operating effectively until the faulty drive is replaced and the info is synced on it.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives which are used for keeping any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer function in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup where one or more drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data duplicated on this kind of a hard drive. In the event that a disk fails and is replaced with a new one, what data will be cloned on the latter will be a combination calculated between the data on the other drives and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the data on the new drive will be correct. During the process, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the problematic drive won't affect the proper operation of your sites at all. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses unique digital identifiers named checksums so as to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
If you employ one of our virtual private server plans, any content you upload will be saved on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least 1 drive is employed for parity to ensure the integrity of your information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where data is copied with one bit added to it. If a disk from the RAID breaks down, your websites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the malfunctioning one, the bits of the information that will be copied on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any possibility of corrupting data throughout the process is averted. We also employ conventional hard drives which operate in RAID for storing backups, so should you add this service to your VPS plan, your content will be kept on multiple drives and you'll never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.