RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for saving data on several hard disk drives that operate together as a single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the aforementioned case one drive is split into independent ones through virtualization software. In any case, the very same info is stored on all the drives and the key benefit of using such a setup is that in case a drive breaks down, the data shall 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 few drives. There are several types of RAID depending on how many hard drives are used, whether writing is carried out on all the drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the information is synchronized between the hard drives - whether it is recorded in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors mean that the error tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types may vary.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
All the content which you upload to your new cloud hosting account will be placed on quick NVMe drives which operate in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to use the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud hosting platform and it adds one more level of security for your website content on top of the real-time checksum validation which ZFS uses to ensure the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the data is saved on several disks and at least one of them is a parity disk - whenever info is recorded on it, an extra bit is added, so in the event that any drive stops working for some reason, the integrity of the info can be verified by recalculating its bits in accordance with what is kept on the production disks and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the functioning of our system won't be interrupted and it will continue functioning smoothly until the malfunctioning drive is replaced and the data is synchronized on it.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives that are used for holding any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an extra bit to any data cloned on this type of a drive. In case that a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what information will be copied on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the remaining disks and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the information on the new drive shall be accurate. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue working adequately and the problematic drive will not affect the adequate operation of your Internet sites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an outstanding addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our cutting-edge cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses special digital identifiers named checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Hosting
In case you take advantage of one of our virtual private server packages, any content you upload will be stored on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least a single drive is used for parity to guarantee the integrity of the 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 in the RAID breaks down, your sites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the faulty one, the bits of the data that will be copied on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. By doing this, any potential for corrupting data during the process is prevented. We also use conventional hard disk drives that work in RAID for storing backup copies, so if you include this service to your VPS plan, 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 breakdowns.