RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that enables a system to take advantage of many hard drives as one single logical unit. Put simply, all drives are used as one and the information on all of them is identical. This type of a configuration has 2 huge advantages over using a single drive to keep data - the first is redundancy, so in the event that one drive breaks down, the data will be accessible from the remaining ones, and the second one is better performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be distributed among different drives. You can find different RAID types based on how many drives are used, if reading and writing are both executed from all the drives concurrently, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, and so on. According to the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance could differ.
RAID in Website Hosting
The hard disks that we employ for storage with our innovative cloud Internet hosting platform are not the standard HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They function in RAID-Z - a special setup developed for the ZFS file system that we use. Any content that you upload to your website hosting account will be kept on multiple hard disks and at least 1 will be used as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where a further bit is added to any content copied on it. In case a disk in the RAID stops working, it will be replaced without service interruptions and the information 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 ensure the integrity of the data and together with the real-time checksum verification that the ZFS file system runs on all drives, you will never have to worry about the loss of any data no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The NVMe drives which are used for holding any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we provide work in RAID-Z. This is a specific setup where one or more disk drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data copied on this kind of a disk drive. If a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what info will be duplicated on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the other disks and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the information on the new drive shall be correct. During the process, the RAID will continue operating normally and the malfunctioning drive won't impact the proper operation of your Internet sites in any way. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is a fantastic addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses special digital identifiers named checksums to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
All VPS server accounts which we provide are generated on physical servers that take advantage of NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is used for parity - one extra bit is included in the data cloned on it and in case a main disk stops working, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged drive so that the right info is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your Internet sites will stay online because all the data will still load from at least one other hard disk. In case you add routine backups to your VPS plan, a copy of your info will be kept on standard hard disks which also operate in RAID as we would like to make sure that any kind of website content you add will be protected at all times. Employing multiple drives in RAID for all the main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.