Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on multiple hard drives concurrently. A RAID can be software or hardware depending on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, yet what’s common between them is the fact that they all function as a single unit where your information is kept. The top advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the info on all drives shall be identical all the time, so even in case one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the data will still be available on the rest of the drives. The overall performance will also improve because the reading and writing processes will be split between various drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance may vary according to the specific setup - whether info is written on all the drives in real time or it's written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Shared Web Hosting

The hard drives that we employ for storage with our innovative cloud Internet hosting platform are not the standard HDDs, but high-speed solid-state drives (SSD). They operate in RAID-Z - a special setup created for the ZFS file system that we use. All the content that you upload to the shared web hosting account will be kept on multiple hard disks and at least one shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where a further bit is included to any content copied on it. If a disk in the RAID stops working, it'll be replaced with no service interruptions and the data will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk plus that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to guarantee the integrity of the info and along with the real-time checksum verification that the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you'll never need to be concerned about losing any data no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The info uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is kept on SSD drives which operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in this kind of a setup is used for parity - each time data is cloned on it, an extra bit is added. In case a disk happens to be faulty, it will be removed from the RAID without interrupting the operation of the Internet sites as the data will load from the other drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the information which will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the info on the parity disk and data saved on the other drives in the RAID. This is done in order to ensure that the information which is being duplicated is accurate, so once the new drive is rebuilt, it can be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is an additional warranty for the integrity of your data as the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud hosting platform compares a special checksum of all copies of your files on the various drives so as to avoid any probability of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Web Hosting

If you use one of our virtual private server plans, any content you upload will be stored on SSD drives which work in RAID. At least a single drive is used for parity so as to guarantee the integrity of your information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where data is copied with one bit added to it. In the event that a disk part of the RAID breaks down, your websites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the malfunctioning one, the bits of the data that will be cloned on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is averted. We also employ standard hard drives which work in RAID for storing backups, so if you include this service to your VPS package, your content will be stored on multiple drives and you won't ever have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.