RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of saving data on several hard disks which operate together as a single logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case one drive is split into individual ones through virtualization software. In any case, exactly the same info is stored on all of the drives and the key advantage of using this type of a setup is that if a drive stops working, the data will remain available on the other ones. Having a RAID also enhances the performance since the input and output operations will be spread among several drives. There are several kinds of RAID dependant upon how many drives are used, whether writing is carried out on all the drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the data is synchronized between the drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors imply that the fault tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types can vary.

RAID in Cloud Web Hosting

The drives which we employ for storage with our outstanding cloud web hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They operate in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system which we use. All of the content that you upload to the cloud web hosting account will be held on multiple hard drives and at least one shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where an extra bit is included to any content copied on it. If a disk in the RAID fails, it'll be changed without service interruptions and the info will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk along with that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to guarantee the integrity of the information and along with the real-time checksum verification which the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you won't ever have to be concerned about losing any info no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives that are used for saving any website content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more hard drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data cloned on such a hard drive. In case that a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what info will be duplicated 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 make sure that the information on the new drive will be correct. During the process, the RAID will continue operating adequately and the faulty drive won't impact the proper operation of your websites by any means. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is a fantastic addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our advanced cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses unique digital identifiers named checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

The NVMe drives which we use on the machines where we set up VPS servers operate in RAID to make sure that any content you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of information is added to any data copied on it. If a main drive breaks down, it is changed and the information which will be cloned on it is calculated between the rest of the drives and the parity one. It's done this way to make sure that the right information is copied and that not a single file is corrupted as the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. In addition, we use hard disks working in RAID on the backup servers, so if you add this upgrade to your VPS package, you'll use an even more reliable web hosting service as your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any unpredicted hardware failure.