RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of keeping data on a number hard disks that operate together as one logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the aforementioned case one drive is split into separate ones using virtualization software. Either way, exactly the same info is saved on all the drives and the key advantage of using such a setup is that in case a drive fails, the data shall still be available on the other ones. Having a RAID also improves the performance since the input and output operations will be spread among several drives. There are several types of RAID based on how many drives are used, whether writing is performed on all of the drives in real time or just on one, and how the info is synced between the hard drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors suggest that the error tolerance and the performance between the different RAID types can differ.

RAID in Web Hosting

The hard drives that we use for storage with our outstanding cloud web hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but quick NVMes. They work in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system that we employ. All the content that you add to your web hosting account will be held on multiple hard drives and at least one of them shall be used as a parity disk. This is a special drive where a further bit is added to any content copied on it. In case a disk in the RAID stops functioning, it will be changed without service disruptions and the info will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk along with that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to guarantee the integrity of the data and together with the real-time checksum verification that the ZFS file system performs on all drives, you won't ever need to concern yourself with the loss of any info no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The information uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is saved on NVMe drives that operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in this kind of a setup is used for parity - every time data is copied on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk happens to be problematic, it will be taken out of the RAID without disturbing the functioning of the Internet sites because the data will load from the other drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the data that will be cloned on it will be a blend between the information on the parity disk and data kept on the other drives in the RAID. This is done in order to ensure that the info which is being cloned is accurate, so as soon as the new drive is rebuilt, it could be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is an extra guarantee for the integrity of your data since the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud web hosting platform analyzes a unique checksum of all copies of the files on the separate drives so as to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts which our company provides are created on physical servers that take advantage of NVMe drives operating in RAID. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one additional bit is included in the information cloned on it and if a main disk fails, this bit makes it much simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed hard disk so that the correct information is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your Internet sites will remain online since all the data will still load from at least 1 more disk drive. If you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of your data will be stored on standard hard drives which also work in RAID because we want to make certain that any site content you upload will be safe and sound all the time. Working with multiple hard drives in RAID for all of the main and backup servers enables us to offer fast and reliable Internet hosting service.