Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of storing content on several hard drives at the same time. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, yet what is common between them is that they all operate as just one single unit where your information is stored. The biggest advantage of using a RAID is redundancy as the information on all of the drives will be exactly the same at all times, so even in the event that some drive fails for some reason, the data will still be present on the rest of the drives. The general performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes can be split between various drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the efficiency and fault tolerance could differ according to the specific setup - whether your data is written on all drives in real time or it's written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.

RAID in Website Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage work in RAID-Z. This sort of RAID is developed to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it takes advantage of the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where info located on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks stops working, your sites shall continue working from the other ones and once we replace the problematic one, the data that will be duplicated on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the other drives as well as the data from the parity disk. This is done in order to be able to recalculate the elements of each and every file adequately and to validate the integrity of the information copied on the new drive. This is one more level of security for the content that you upload to your website hosting account in addition to the ZFS file system that analyzes a special digital fingerprint for each and every file on all drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The NVMe drives that are used for saving any website content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting 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 include an additional bit to any data cloned on this kind of a drive. In the event that a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what info will be copied on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the other hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the information on the new drive will be accurate. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the malfunctioning drive won't have an effect on the adequate operation of your Internet sites at all. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our cutting-edge cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses unique digital identifiers known as checksums in order to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS

The NVMe drives that we use on the machines where we generate virtual private servers work in RAID to ensure that any content that you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least one drive is employed for parity - one bit of data is added to any data copied on it. In the event that a main drive breaks down, it is changed and the data which will be copied on it is calculated between the remaining drives and the parity one. That’s done to ensure that the correct info is copied and that no file is corrupted since the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. We also use hard disk drives functioning in RAID on the backup servers, so in case you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you will use an even more reliable Internet hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any kind of unpredicted hardware failure.