RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for saving data on several hard drives which work together as a single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case one single drive is divided into independent ones via virtualization software. In either case, the very same information is saved on all the drives and the basic benefit of using this type of a setup is that if a drive fails, the data will remain available on the remaining ones. Using a RAID also boosts the overall performance since the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several types of RAID based on how many hard drives are used, whether writing is carried out on all drives in real time or just on one, and how the data is synced between the hard drives - whether it's written in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors indicate that the error tolerance as well as the performance between the different RAID types can vary.

RAID in Web Hosting

The disk drives that we employ for storage with our state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but extremely fast solid-state drives (SSD). They function in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system which we use. All the content that you add to your web hosting account will be kept on multiple drives and at least 1 shall be used as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where an additional 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 disturbances and the information will be recovered on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk plus that on the remaining disks. This is done to guarantee the integrity of the data and together with the real-time checksum authentication which the ZFS file system performs on all drives, you won't ever have to be concerned about the loss of any information no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The info uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is kept on SSD drives which function in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a configuration is used for parity - any time data is copied on it, an extra bit is added. In case a disk happens to be problematic, it will be removed from the RAID without interrupting the functioning of the websites since the data will load from the other drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the info which will be cloned on it will be a combination between the information on the parity disk and data saved on the other hard drives in the RAID. That is done in order to ensure that the information that is being cloned is accurate, so once the new drive is rebuilt, it can be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is one more warranty for the integrity of your info as the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud web hosting platform compares a special checksum of all the copies of the files on the separate drives in order to avoid any possibility of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Web Hosting

In case you take advantage of one of our virtual private server packages, any content which you upload will be saved on SSD drives that work in RAID. At least one drive is used for parity to ensure the integrity of the info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where data is copied with one bit added to it. In the event that a disk within the RAID stops working, your Internet sites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the defective one, the bits of the information that will be cloned on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is averted. We also employ ordinary hard disk drives which function in RAID for storing backups, so in case you add this service to your VPS package, your website 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.