Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on multiple hard disk drives at the same time. A RAID might be software or hardware based on the hard drives which are used - physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is that they all perform as just a single unit where info is stored. The main advantage of using a RAID is redundancy since the data on all the drives shall be identical all the time, so even in case some drive fails for some reason, the data will still be available on the remaining drives. The general performance is also better because the reading and writing processes could be split between different drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the efficiency and fault tolerance may differ according to the exact setup - whether data is written on all the drives real-time or it's written on a single drive and afterwards mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, and so on.

RAID in Shared Website Hosting

All the content that you upload to your new shared website hosting account will be saved on fast NVMe drives that work in RAID-Z. This configuration is built to work with the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud hosting platform and it adds one more level of protection for your website content on top of the real-time checksum verification that ZFS uses to ensure the integrity of the data. With RAID-Z, the information is stored on a couple of disks and at least one is a parity disk - whenever info is recorded on it, an extra bit is added, so if any drive stops working for some reason, the integrity of the info can be verified by recalculating its bits in accordance with what is kept on the production disks and on the parity one. With RAID-Z, the operation of our system won't be interrupted and it'll continue functioning smoothly until the problematic drive is changed and the info is synced on it.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The NVMe drives that are used for keeping any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts that we offer function in RAID-Z. This is a specific configuration where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will add an additional bit to any data copied on this kind of a hard drive. In the event that a disk fails and is replaced with a new one, what data will be cloned on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the other hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the data on the new drive will be accurate. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the problematic drive won't impact the normal operation of your websites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a fantastic addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform with regards 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

The NVMe drives that we use on the machines where we create virtual private servers operate in RAID to make sure that any content that you upload will be available and intact all of the time. At least 1 drive is used for parity - one bit of info is added to any data cloned on it. In case a main drive stops working, it is replaced and the information that will be cloned on it is calculated between the other drives and the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the needed info is copied and that no file is corrupted as the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard disk drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you will use an even more reliable hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any type of unpredicted hardware malfunction.