Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of storing content on several hard disks simultaneously. A RAID can be software or hardware based on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, yet what is common between them is the fact that they all function as just a single unit where data is saved. The key advantage of using a RAID is redundancy as the information on all of the drives will be the same all the time, so even in the event that a drive fails for whatever reason, the data will still be present on the other drives. The general performance is also enhanced since the reading and writing processes can be split between multiple drives, so a single one will never be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance may differ based on the specific setup - whether your data is written on all the drives real-time or it's written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Shared Website Hosting
Any content that you upload to your new shared website hosting account will be stored on quick NVMe drives that operate in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to employ the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud web hosting platform and it adds one more level of protection for your content in addition to the real-time checksum verification that ZFS uses to ensure the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the info is stored on a couple of disks and at least one is a parity disk - whenever data is recorded on it, an extra bit is added, so in case any drive fails for whatever reason, the integrity of the data can be verified by recalculating its bits based on what is stored on the production drives and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the functioning of our system won't be interrupted and it'll continue operating smoothly until the problematic drive is changed and the data is synced on it.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The NVMe drives that are used for holding any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we provide operate in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more disk drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an extra bit to any data duplicated on this type of a disk drive. In case that a disk fails and is replaced with a new one, what info will be cloned on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the other disks and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the data on the new drive shall be accurate. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue operating normally and the problematic drive will not affect the proper operation of your websites in any way. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an impressive addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses special digital identifiers known as checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
All VPS server accounts that we provide are created on physical servers that take advantage of NVMe drives working in RAID. At least one drive is used for parity - one additional bit is added to the info cloned on it and if a main disk fails, this bit makes it much simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed disk drive so that the right info is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. Meanwhile, your websites will still be online as all the information will still load from at least one more hard disk. If you add routine backups to your VPS package, a copy of the info will be saved on standard disk drives that also function in RAID since we want to make sure that any type of content you add will be safe and sound at all times. Working with multiple hard drives in RAID for all main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.