Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of storing content on a number of hard disk drives simultaneously. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the HDDs which are used - physical or logical ones, but what is common between them is that they all function as just one single unit where your information is stored. The main advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the info on all of the drives shall be exactly the same all the time, so even in case some drive fails for some reason, the info will still be available on the remaining drives. The general performance is also better since the reading and writing processes will be split between a number of drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There are different types of RAIDs where the effectiveness and fault tolerance may vary based on the particular setup - whether information is written on all the drives in real time or it's written on one drive and afterwards mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Hosting

Our advanced cloud hosting platform where all hosting accounts are created uses quick NVMe drives as an alternative to the traditional HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this configuration, numerous hard drives function together and at least one is a dedicated parity disk. Simply put, when data is written on the other drives, it's duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even if a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the info can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data stored on the other ones, thus absolutely nothing will be lost and there will not be any service disorders. This is another level of security for your data together with the advanced ZFS file system that uses checksums to ensure that all of the data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The NVMe drives that are used for holding any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts which we provide function in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an extra bit to any data duplicated on such a drive. In the event that a disk fails and is substituted with a new one, what info will be cloned 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 data on the new drive shall be correct. During the process, the RAID will continue working normally and the faulty drive will not impact the adequate operation of your websites at all. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an amazing addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our revolutionary cloud platform with respect to preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses specific digital identifiers named checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts which we offer are created on physical servers that employ NVMe drives working in RAID. At least 1 drive is used for parity - one extra bit is added to the data copied on it and in case a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged disk drive so that the accurate info is recovered on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your Internet sites will remain online because all the data will still load from at least one more hard drive. In the event that you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the information will be saved on standard disk drives which also work in RAID since we want to make certain that any sort of site content you upload will be protected all the time. Employing multiple hard disks in RAID for all main and backup servers enables us to offer fast and reliable web hosting service.