Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on multiple hard drives simultaneously. A RAID might be software or hardware depending on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, still what’s common between them is the fact that they all work as one single unit where information is kept. The main advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy because the info on all drives shall be identical all of the time, so even if some drive fails for some reason, the data will still be available on the rest of the drives. The general performance is enhanced as well as the reading and writing processes could be split between various drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There are different kinds of RAIDs where the effectiveness and fault tolerance may differ based on the particular setup - whether data is written on all drives in real time or it is written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.
RAID in Cloud Website Hosting
The revolutionary cloud Internet hosting platform where all cloud website hosting accounts are made employs quick NVMe drives as opposed to the traditional HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this setup, several hard disks operate together and at least one of them is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the rest of the drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even in case a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the info can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data saved on the other ones, so nothing will be lost and there will not be any service disorders. This is another level of security for your information along with the revolutionary ZFS file system that uses checksums to make sure that all data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you host your Internet sites inside a semi-dedicated hosting account from our firm, all the content you upload will be stored on NVMe drives which operate in RAID-Z. With this type of RAID, at least 1 of the drives is employed for parity - when data is synchronized between the drives, an additional bit is included in it on the parity one. The purpose behind this is to guarantee the integrity of the information that is duplicated to a brand new drive in the event that one of the disks in the RAID stops working because the site content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the data on the standard drives and on the parity one. An additional advantage of RAID-Z is the fact that even in case a hard drive stops working, the system could switch to another one instantly without service interruptions of any type. RAID-Z adds an additional level of protection for the content you upload on our cloud Internet hosting platform together with the ZFS file system that uses unique checksums as a way to verify the integrity of each and every file.
RAID in VPS Hosting
If you employ one of our virtual private server plans, any content that you upload will be saved on NVMe drives which function in RAID. At least a single drive is employed for parity so as to ensure the integrity of your information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where information is copied with one bit added to it. If a disk inside the RAID stops working, your websites will continue working and when a new disk substitutes the flawed one, the bits of the info that will be duplicated on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. By doing this, any possibility of corrupting data throughout the process is avoided. We also use conventional hard disks that function in RAID for storing backups, so in case you add this service to your VPS plan, your website content will be saved on multiple drives and you won't ever have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.