RAID, which is an acronym of Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that allows a system to take advantage of multiple hard drives as one single logical unit. In other words, all drives are used as one and the information on all of them is the same. Such a configuration has 2 key advantages over using just a single drive to save data - the first is redundancy, so if one drive doesn't work, the information will be accessible through the remaining ones, and the second one is improved performance as the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among multiple drives. There are different RAID types in accordance with the number of drives are employed, whether reading and writing are both performed from all drives simultaneously, if data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, etc. Determined by the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance may differ.

RAID in Web Hosting

The revolutionary cloud hosting platform where all web hosting accounts are created uses fast SSD drives rather than the classic HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this configuration, several hard disks work together and at least one of them is a dedicated parity disk. Put simply, when data is written on the remaining drives, it's copied on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even if a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data saved on the other ones, thus absolutely nothing will be lost and there will be no service disorders. This is one more level of security for your information along with the cutting-edge ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that all of the data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you host your sites in a semi-dedicated hosting account from our firm, all the content which you upload will be stored on SSD drives that work in RAID-Z. With this kind of RAID, at least 1 of the drives is employed for parity - when data is synced between the disks, an extra bit is added to it on the parity one. The idea behind this is to ensure the integrity of the data which is duplicated to a new drive in the event that one of the disks in the RAID fails since the website content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the info on the standard hard drives and on the parity one. An additional advantage of RAID-Z is that even if a disk drive stops functioning, the system can switch to a different one instantly without service disturbances of any type. RAID-Z adds one more level of protection for the content you upload on our cloud Internet hosting platform together with the ZFS file system which uses unique checksums so as to authenticate the integrity of each file.

RAID in VPS Web Hosting

The SSD drives which we use on the machines where we generate virtual private servers operate in RAID to ensure that any content which you upload will be available and intact all of the time. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of data is added to any data cloned on it. If a main drive fails, it is changed and the data that will be duplicated on it is calculated between the rest of the drives and the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the needed data is copied and that not a single file is corrupted as the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. We also use hard disk drives operating in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you shall use an even more reliable web hosting service as your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any kind of unpredicted hardware malfunction.