Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of saving content on several hard drives simultaneously. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the hard drives that are used - physical or logical ones, still what is common between them is the fact that they all function as one single unit where info is kept. The biggest advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy since the data on all drives will be the same at all times, so even if some drive fails for some reason, the info will still be present on the other drives. The overall performance is enhanced as well because the reading and writing processes can be split between different drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the effectiveness and fault tolerance can vary based on the specific setup - whether data is written on all the drives in real time or it is written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.
RAID in Cloud Website Hosting
The drives which we employ for storage with our top-notch cloud web hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but quick NVMes. They function in RAID-Z - a special setup created for the ZFS file system which we work with. All of the content that you upload to the cloud website hosting account will be saved on multiple drives and at least one of them shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a special drive where a further 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 info will be recovered on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk along with that on the other disks. This is done in order to guarantee the integrity of the information and together with the real-time checksum validation that the ZFS file system runs on all drives, you won't ever need to concern yourself with losing any information no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The NVMe drives that are used for storing any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup 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 type of a hard drive. If a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what information will be copied on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining drives and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the information on the new drive will be accurate. During the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the faulty drive will not have an effect on the normal operation of your websites by any means. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses special digital identifiers known as checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
If you use one of our virtual private server plans, any content that you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which work in RAID. At least 1 drive is used 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. 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 duplicated on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. By doing this, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is prevented. We also use conventional hard disk drives that function in RAID for storing backup copies, so if you add this service to your VPS package, your content will be kept on multiple drives and you will never need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.