RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for storing data on a number hard disks which operate together as a single logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case a single drive is divided into different ones through virtualization software. In either case, the same information is kept on all of the drives and the key benefit of employing such a setup is that in the event that a drive breaks down, the data will still be available on the other ones. Employing a RAID also enhances the overall performance as 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 performed on all drives in real time or just on one, and how the data is synced between the drives - whether it is recorded in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. These factors indicate that the fault tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types may vary.

RAID in Web Hosting

Our state-of-the-art cloud Internet hosting platform where all web hosting accounts are generated employs fast NVMe drives rather than the traditional HDDs, and they work in RAID-Z. With this setup, numerous hard drives function together and at least one of them is a dedicated parity disk. In simple terms, when data is written on the other drives, it's copied on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is carried out for redundancy as even if some 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 recorded on the other ones, which means that nothing will be lost and there won't be any service interruptions. This is another level of security for your info together with the cutting-edge ZFS file system that uses checksums to ensure that all of the data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The RAID type that we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is referred to as RAID-Z. What is different about it is that at least one of the disks is used as a parity drive. In simple terms, whenever any data is cloned on this special hard drive, one more bit is added to it and in the event that a defective disk is replaced, the data that will be copied on it is a combination of the data on the remaining drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. We do this to guarantee that your information is intact. Throughout this process, your sites will be working normally since RAID-Z makes it possible for a whole drive to fail without causing any service interruptions and it simply uses one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to ensure that no data shall get silently corrupted on our servers, you will never have to worry about the integrity of your files.

RAID in VPS Hosting

The NVMe drives that we use on the machines where we generate virtual private servers work in RAID to ensure that any content you upload will be available and intact at all times. At least 1 drive is used for parity - one bit of information is added to any data copied on it. If a main drive breaks down, it is replaced and the information that will be copied on it is calculated between the remaining drives and the parity one. That’s done to ensure that the right information is copied and that no file is corrupted because the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. In addition, we use hard disks working in RAID on the backup servers, so in case you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you will use an even more reliable hosting service as your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any sort of unexpected hardware malfunction.