Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on multiple hard disk drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, yet what’s common between them is that they all perform as one single unit where info is kept. The main advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy because the info on all of the drives shall be the same at all times, so even in the event that a drive fails for whatever reason, the data will still be available on the other drives. The general performance is enhanced as well since the reading and writing processes will be split between a number of drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance may differ based on the particular setup - whether information is written on all drives real-time or it is written on a single drive and afterwards mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.

RAID in Hosting

The disk drives that we use for storage with our top-notch cloud web hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but super fast NVMes. They work in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system that we work with. Any content that you upload to your hosting account will be saved on multiple hard drives and at least one will be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where a further bit is added to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops functioning, it'll be changed without service disruptions and the information will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk along with that on the other disks. This is done to ensure the integrity of the info and along with the real-time checksum validation that the ZFS file system performs on all drives, you won't ever have to be concerned about the loss of any information no matter what.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is stored on NVMe drives that operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in such a configuration is used for parity - each time data is cloned on it, an additional bit is added. In case a disk happens to be defective, it will be removed from the RAID without disturbing the operation of the websites because the data will load from the rest of the drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the data that will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the information on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard drives in the RAID. This is done so as to guarantee that the data which is being duplicated is accurate, so the moment the new drive is rebuilt, it could be incorporated into the RAID as a production one. This is one more guarantee for the integrity of your info as the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud web hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all copies of the files on the separate drives to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts that our company provides are generated on physical servers that employ NVMe drives operating in RAID. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one extra bit is added to the data duplicated on it and if a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed hard disk so that the accurate data is recovered on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your Internet sites will stay online since 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 your data will be saved on standard hard drives that also work in RAID as we would like to make sure that any type of site content you upload will be safe and sound at all times. Using multiple hard drives in RAID for all main and backup servers enables us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.