Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of storing content on multiple hard drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, yet what’s common between them is the fact that they all function as a single unit where data is stored. The top advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the info on all drives will be exactly the same at all times, so even in the event that one of the drives fails for some reason, the info will still be available on the other drives. The overall performance will also improve as the reading and writing processes will be split between different drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There are different kinds of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance may differ based on the exact setup - whether your data is written on all of the drives in real time or it's written on a single drive and then mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage operate in RAID-Z. This kind of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it takes advantage of the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where data located on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks fails, your Internet sites will continue working from the other ones and after we replace the problematic one, the info which will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the other drives as well as the data from the parity disk. This is done in order to be able to recalculate the bits of every file adequately and to confirm the integrity of the information duplicated on the new drive. This is another level of security for the info which you upload to your cloud hosting account along with the ZFS file system which analyzes a unique digital fingerprint for every single file on all hard drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you host your sites in a semi-dedicated server account from our firm, all of the content which you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which operate in RAID-Z. With this form of RAID, at least 1 of the hard disks is employed for parity - when data is synced between the drives, an extra bit is included in it on the parity one. The purpose behind this is to guarantee the integrity of the data that is copied to a new drive if one of the hard drives in the RAID stops working because the content being copied on the new disk is recalculated from the information on the standard disk drives and on the parity one. Another advantage of RAID-Z is the fact that even in case a drive stops functioning, the system could switch to another one right away without service disturbances of any sort. RAID-Z adds an additional level of safety for the content that you upload on our cloud hosting platform in addition to the ZFS file system which uses unique checksums so as to authenticate the integrity of each file.
RAID in VPS Servers
All VPS server accounts that our company provides are created on physical servers that take advantage of NVMe drives operating in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity - one additional bit is added to the info copied on it and if a main disk stops working, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged disk drive so that the correct data is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. Meanwhile, your sites will still be online since all the data will still load from at least 1 more disk drive. If you add routine backups to your VPS package, a copy of the data will be stored on standard hard disks that also operate in RAID because we would like to make sure that any content you upload will be safe and sound all the time. Employing multiple drives in RAID for all the main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable web hosting service.