RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that makes it possible for a system to use a number of hard drives as a single logical unit. To put it differently, all of the drives are used as one and the information on all of them is the same. This kind of a configuration has two major advantages over using a single drive to keep data - the first is redundancy, so in case one drive breaks down, the information will be accessible from the others, and the second is better performance since the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among a number of drives. There are different RAID types depending on the number of drives are used, if reading and writing are both executed from all the drives at the same time, if data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, and many others. According to the particular setup, the error tolerance and the performance could differ.

RAID in Hosting

The advanced cloud web hosting platform where all hosting accounts are made uses quick NVMe drives as opposed to the classic HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this configuration, numerous hard disk drives operate together and at least 1 is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the other drives, it's cloned on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even if some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, which means that absolutely nothing will be lost and there won't be any service disturbances. This is an additional level of protection for your info along with the top-notch ZFS file system which uses checksums to guarantee that all data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is saved on NVMe drives which function in RAID-Z. One of the drives in such a configuration is used for parity - whenever data is cloned on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk turns out to be faulty, it will be taken out of the RAID without disturbing the operation of the websites as the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a new drive is added, the data that will be copied on it will be a blend between the data on the parity disk and data stored on the other hard drives in the RAID. That is done to ensure that the info that 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 an extra guarantee for the integrity of your info because the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all copies of your files on the different drives to be able to avoid any possibility of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS

The NVMe drives that we use on the machines where we set up virtual private servers work in RAID to ensure that any content which you upload will be available and intact all of the time. At least 1 drive is used for parity - one bit of data is added to any data cloned on it. In case a main drive stops working, it is replaced and the information which will be duplicated on it is calculated between the remaining drives and the parity one. It's done this way to make sure that the correct info is copied and that not a single file is corrupted as the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard drives functioning in RAID on the backup servers, so if you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you will use an even more reliable Internet hosting service because your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any sort of unforeseen hardware malfunction.