Data compression is the reduction of the number of bits that should be saved or transmitted and this process is quite important in the web hosting field as information filed on hard drives is usually compressed in order to take less space. There are different algorithms for compressing data and they have different efficiency depending on the content. Some of them remove only the redundant bits, so no data will be lost, while others remove unneeded bits, which results in worse quality when your data is uncompressed. The process employs a lot of processing time, so a hosting server should be powerful enough so as to be able to compress and uncompress data in real time. An example how binary code could be compressed is by "remembering" that there are five sequential 1s, for example, rather than storing all five 1s.

Data Compression in Hosting

The compression algorithm that we work with on the cloud hosting platform where your new hosting account shall be created is called LZ4 and it's used by the cutting-edge ZFS file system that powers the system. The algorithm is much better than the ones other file systems work with as its compression ratio is higher and it processes data significantly quicker. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed as this happens more quickly than data can be read from a hard disk. Because of this, LZ4 improves the performance of any Internet site hosted on a server which uses the algorithm. We take full advantage of LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make a couple of daily backup copies of the whole content of all accounts and store them for one month. Not only do our backups take less space, but their generation doesn't slow the servers down like it can often happen with various other file systems.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting

Your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created on a cloud platform that runs on the advanced ZFS file system. The latter uses a compression algorithm known as LZ4, which is a lot better than all other algorithms with regard to compression ratio and speed. The gain is noticeable particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much faster than other algorithms, but it is also faster in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard drive. That's why sites running on a platform that uses LZ4 compression perform better since the algorithm is most effective when it processes compressible data i.e. web content. Another advantage of using LZ4 is that the backup copies of the semi-dedicated accounts which we keep take a lot less space and are generated faster, which enables us to store several daily backups of your files and databases.