Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on a number of hard drives at the same time. A RAID might be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, but what is common between them is that they all operate as just a single unit where data is stored. The biggest advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the data on all of the drives is the same all the time, so even in case one of the drives fails for some reason, the data will still be available on the remaining drives. The overall performance is also better as the reading and writing processes could be split between multiple 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 information is written on all the drives in real time or it's written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Shared Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform uses for storage work in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it uses the so-called parity disk - a special drive where information located on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. If one of the disks fails, your sites will continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the bad one, the data that will be duplicated on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives as well as the data from the parity disk. This is performed so as to be able to recalculate the elements of each file correctly and to verify the integrity of the info copied on the new drive. This is another level of security for the content you upload to your shared hosting account along with the ZFS file system which analyzes a unique digital fingerprint for every single file on all the disk drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The NVMe drives that are used for holding any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data copied on this kind of a hard drive. If a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what data will be duplicated on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the other drives and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the info on the new drive shall be correct. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue operating normally and the faulty drive won't affect the normal operation of your Internet sites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a superb addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our advanced cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses unique digital identifiers known as checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Web Hosting

The NVMe drives that we use on the machines where we generate virtual private servers work in RAID to make sure that any content that you upload will be available and intact all of the time. At least one drive is used for parity - one bit of data is added to any data copied on it. In the event that a main drive fails, it is replaced and the information which will be cloned on it is calculated between the rest of the drives and the parity one. It's done this way to make sure that the needed info is copied and that not a single file is corrupted since the new drive will be a part of the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so in case you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you shall use an even more reliable hosting service because your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any type of unexpected hardware failure.