RAID, which is an acronym of Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology which allows a system to use a number of hard drives as one single logical unit. Put simply, all of the drives are used as one and the info on all of them is the same. This type of a setup has 2 key advantages over using a single drive to store data - the first one is redundancy, so if one drive breaks down, the data will be accessed from the remaining ones, and the second one is better performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among a number of drives. There're different RAID types in accordance with what number of drives are employed, if reading and writing are both handled from all of the drives simultaneously, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, and many others. Based on the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance may vary.

RAID in Hosting

The hard disks that we use for storage with our outstanding cloud web hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They function in RAID-Z - a special setup intended for the ZFS file system that we work with. All the content that you upload to the hosting account will be stored on multiple hard drives and at least one will be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where a further bit is included to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops working, it'll be changed with no service disruptions and the info will be recovered 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 so as to ensure the integrity of the data and along with the real-time checksum verification which the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you will never need to be concerned about the loss of any info no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The RAID type that we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated server account shall be created is referred to as RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is employed as a parity drive. Simply put, whenever any kind of data is copied on this special disk drive, one more bit is included to it and in case a malfunctioning disk is replaced, the data which will be duplicated on it is a combination of the data on the other drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. We do this to make sure that the information is intact. During this process, your Internet sites will be up and running normally because RAID-Z enables an entire drive to fail without any service interruptions and it simply works by using one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system which uses checksums to warrant that no data shall get silently corrupted on our servers, you'll never have to worry about the integrity of your files.

RAID in VPS Servers

The NVMe drives which we use on the physical machines where we generate VPS servers operate in RAID to make sure that any content you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least one drive is employed for parity - one bit of info is added to any data cloned on it. If a main drive fails, it is replaced and the data which will be cloned on it is calculated between the remaining drives and the parity one. This is done to make sure that the right data is copied and that no file is corrupted as the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. We also use hard disks working in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS package, you'll use an even more reliable Internet hosting service as your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any type of unpredicted hardware malfunction.