Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on several hard disk drives at the same time. A RAID might be software or hardware depending on the hard drives that are used - physical or logical ones, still what’s common between them is the fact that they all function as a single unit where info is kept. The main advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy since the information on all drives is the same all the time, so even in the event that some drive fails for some reason, the info will still be available on the rest of the drives. The general performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes could be split between different drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There are different sorts of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance may vary depending on the specific setup - whether info is written on all of the drives real-time or it is written on one drive and then mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Cloud Hosting

All of the content that you upload to your new cloud hosting account will be placed on quick NVMe drives that operate in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to employ the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform and it adds one more level of security for your content on top of the real-time checksum validation that ZFS uses to guarantee the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the data is saved on a number of disks and at least 1 is a parity disk - whenever information is recorded on it, an additional bit is added, so in the event that any drive stops working for some reason, the integrity of the information can be verified by recalculating its bits based on what is kept on the production hard disks and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the functioning of our system won't be interrupted and it will continue functioning smoothly until the malfunctioning drive is replaced and the information is synchronized on it.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives which are used for holding any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a specific configuration where one or more disk drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data duplicated on such a drive. If a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what info will be duplicated on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining drives and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the info on the new drive shall be correct. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue working normally and the faulty drive won't have an effect on the proper operation of your websites in any way. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a superb addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses unique digital identifiers named checksums so as to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

In case you use one of our VPS server packages, any content you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which function in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity to ensure the integrity of your 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 inside the RAID stops functioning, your websites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the flawed one, the bits of the info that will be duplicated on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is averted. We also employ ordinary hard disk drives that function in RAID for storing backups, so in case you add this service to your VPS plan, your content will be saved on multiple drives and you will never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.