Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of saving content on multiple hard drives simultaneously. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, still what is common between them is that they all work as just one single unit where your information is saved. The main advantage of using a RAID is redundancy as the info on all the drives shall be the same all the time, so even in the event that one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the information will still be present on the remaining drives. The general performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes will be split between different drives, so a single one will not be overloaded. There are different sorts of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance may vary based on the particular setup - whether your data is written on all the drives in real time or it is written on a single drive and afterwards mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.

RAID in Web Hosting

Our state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform where all web hosting accounts are created employs fast NVMe drives rather than the classic HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this configuration, multiple hard disk drives work together and at least one is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the other drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even in case a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, so not a thing will be lost and there will not be any service interruptions. This is another level of security for your information along with the cutting-edge ZFS file system that uses checksums to make sure that all the data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives which are used for saving any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we provide operate in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data duplicated on this type of a hard drive. In the event that a disk fails and is substituted with a new one, what data will be copied on the latter will be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining drives and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the info on the new drive shall be accurate. During the procedure, the RAID will continue working normally and the faulty drive will not affect the adequate operation of your websites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an impressive addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our cutting-edge cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses unique digital identifiers referred to as checksums so as to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts that our company offers are created on physical servers that take advantage of NVMe drives working in RAID. At least 1 drive is used for parity - one additional bit is added to the info duplicated on it and in case a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed disk drive so that the correct info is recovered on the new drive included in the RAID. At the same time, your Internet sites will stay online because all the data will still load from at least 1 more disk drive. In the event that you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of your information will be stored on standard hard drives which also function in RAID as we would like to make sure that any site content you upload will be protected all the time. Using multiple hard drives in RAID for all main and backup servers enables us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.