RAID, which is an acronym of Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology which makes it possible for a system to use a number of hard drives as one single logical unit. To put it differently, all the drives are used as one and the data on all of them is identical. This kind of a configuration has 2 huge advantages over using just a single drive to store data - the first one is redundancy, so if one drive fails, the information will be accessed through the others, and the second one is better performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be distributed among different drives. There're different RAID types based on the number of drives are used, whether reading and writing are both executed from all drives concurrently, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, and so on. Determined by the exact setup, the error tolerance and the performance may differ.

RAID in Shared Hosting

The revolutionary cloud hosting platform where all shared hosting accounts are generated employs quick NVMe drives as opposed to the traditional HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this setup, a number of hard disks function together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Put simply, when data is written on the remaining drives, it's copied on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is carried out for redundancy as even in case a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the info can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data stored on the other ones, therefore nothing will be lost and there will be no service interruptions. This is another level of security for your info along with the top-notch ZFS file system which uses checksums to make sure that all data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives that are used for saving any website content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more disk drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data copied on this type of a disk drive. In the event that a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what information 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 guarantee that the info on the new drive shall be accurate. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the faulty drive will not impact the adequate operation of your sites at all. Using NVMes in RAID-Z is an excellent addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our top-notch cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses specific digital identifiers named checksums in order to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

In case you use one of our VPS server plans, any content you upload will be saved on NVMe drives that function in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity so as to ensure the integrity of your information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk in the RAID stops working, your sites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the flawed one, the bits of the info that will be cloned on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. By doing this, any possibility of corrupting data during the process is prevented. We also use conventional hard drives which operate in RAID for storing backup copies, so if you include this service to your VPS package, your site content will be stored on multiple drives and you won't ever have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.