Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on several hard disks at the same time. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the drives that are used - physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is that they all function as a single unit where data is kept. The main advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the data on all the drives shall be exactly the same all the time, so even if one of the drives fails for some reason, the data will still be present on the rest of the 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're different types of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance could differ based on the specific setup - whether data is written on all drives real-time or it is written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.
RAID in Shared Web Hosting
The drives that we employ for storage with our outstanding cloud hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They work in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system which we employ. All of the content that you add to your shared web hosting account will be stored on multiple hard drives and at least 1 will be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where a further bit is included to any content copied on it. In case a disk in the RAID stops functioning, it will be changed without any service interruptions and the data will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk plus that on the remaining disks. This is done in order to ensure the integrity of the information and together with the real-time checksum verification which the ZFS file system runs on all drives, you'll never need to worry about the loss of any info no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The info uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is kept on NVMe drives that function in RAID-Z. One of the drives in this kind of a configuration is used for parity - every time data is copied on it, an extra bit is added. In case a disk happens to be defective, it will be taken out of the RAID without interrupting the operation of the websites because the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a new drive is added, the data which will be cloned on it will be a mix between the information on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard drives in the RAID. This is done to guarantee that the information that is being copied is correct, so once the new drive is rebuilt, it could be included in the RAID as a production one. This is an extra warranty for the integrity of your info since the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud web hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all the copies of your files on the separate drives to avoid any possibility of silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Hosting
If you employ one of our virtual private server packages, any content that you upload will be kept on NVMe drives that work in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity to guarantee the integrity of the data. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. If a disk part of the RAID stops functioning, your websites will continue working and when a new disk substitutes the malfunctioning one, the bits of the info that will be copied on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any possibility of corrupting data during the process is averted. We also employ ordinary hard drives which function in RAID for storing backups, so if you add this service to your VPS package, your website content will be kept on multiple drives and you won't ever need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.