RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology which allows a system to take advantage of several hard drives as one single logical unit. Put simply, all the drives are used as one and the info on all of them is the same. This kind of a configuration has two huge advantages over using just a single drive to save data - the first one is redundancy, so in case one drive fails, the information will be accessed from the others, and the second one is improved performance because the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be distributed among several drives. There're different RAID types depending on what number of drives are employed, if reading and writing are both executed from all the drives at the same time, whether data is written in blocks on one drive after another or is mirrored between drives in the same time, etc. Depending on the particular setup, the fault tolerance and the performance may differ.

RAID in Shared Hosting

Our state-of-the-art cloud hosting platform where all shared hosting accounts are made uses super fast SSD drives instead of the traditional HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this setup, several hard disks function together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Simply put, when data is written on the rest of the drives, it is 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 data can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, so nothing will be lost and there won't be any service disturbances. This is one more level of security for your data in addition to the advanced ZFS file system that uses checksums to make sure that all data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The SSD drives that are used for storing any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we provide function in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more disk drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an extra bit to any data duplicated on this kind of a disk drive. If a disk fails and is replaced with a new one, what info will be copied on the latter will be a combination calculated between the data on the remaining hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the data on the new drive shall be correct. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue functioning normally and the malfunctioning drive won't have an effect on the proper operation of your Internet sites by any means. Using SSDs in RAID-Z is an outstanding addition to the ZFS file system that runs on our top-notch cloud platform with respect to preserving the integrity of your files as ZFS uses specific digital identifiers identified as checksums to avoid silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

The SSD drives which we use on the physical machines where we generate VPS servers function in RAID to ensure that any content you upload will be available and intact at all times. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of information is added to any data cloned on it. If a main drive fails, 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 required info is copied and that not a single file is corrupted as the new drive will be included in the RAID afterwards. We also use hard disks functioning in RAID on the backup servers, so in case you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you'll use an even more reliable hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any sudden hardware failure.