Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on a number of hard disk drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, still what’s common between them is the fact that they all work as a single unit where info is kept. The key advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the data on all the drives will be identical all the time, so even in the event that a drive fails for whatever reason, the information will still be present on the remaining drives. The overall performance is also better because the reading and writing processes could be split between a number of drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance could differ based on the particular setup - whether data is written on all of the drives in real time or it's written on a single drive and after that mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.

RAID in Shared Website Hosting

The hard disks that we use for storage with our revolutionary cloud Internet hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but high-speed NVMes. They work in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system which we work with. Any content that you upload to your shared website hosting account will be saved on multiple hard disks and at least 1 will be used as a parity disk. This is a special drive where an additional bit is included to any content copied on it. In case a disk in the RAID stops working, it'll be replaced with no service interruptions and the information 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 to guarantee the integrity of the information and together with the real-time checksum verification which the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you'll never need to be concerned about losing any information no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives which are used for holding any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we provide function in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more hard drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data cloned on this kind of a disk drive. If a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what information will be cloned on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the other hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the data on the new drive shall be correct. During the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the faulty drive won't impact the proper operation of your websites in any way. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is an amazing addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with respect to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses special digital identifiers identified as checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

If you take advantage of one of our VPS server packages, any content that you upload will be kept on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity so as to guarantee the integrity of the data. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk within the RAID breaks down, your Internet sites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the defective one, the bits of the info that will be copied on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any chance of corrupting data during the process is prevented. We also employ standard hard disks that function in RAID for storing backup copies, so should you include this service to your VPS plan, your content will be stored on multiple drives and you'll never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.