RAID, which is an acronym of Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that permits a system to take advantage of many hard drives as one single logical unit. Simply put, all drives are used as one and the info on all of them is identical. This type of a configuration has 2 key advantages over using a single drive to keep data - the first is redundancy, so in case one drive breaks down, the info will be accessible through the others, and the second one is better performance as the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among different drives. There're different RAID types in accordance with how many drives are used, if reading and writing are both done from all 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, etc. Based on the exact setup, the fault tolerance and the performance could differ.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
The NVMe drives which our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform employs for storage function in RAID-Z. This kind of RAID is intended to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it works by using the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where information kept on the other drives is copied with an extra bit added to it. In case one of the disks stops functioning, your websites will continue working from the other ones and after we replace the malfunctioning one, the info which will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the other drives along with the data from the parity disk. This is performed in order to be able to recalculate the elements of every file correctly and to validate the integrity of the info copied on the new drive. This is one more level of security for the info that you upload to your cloud hosting account along with the ZFS file system that compares a special digital fingerprint for each file on all disk drives in real time.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type which we use for the cloud hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is called RAID-Z. What is different about it is that at least one of the disks is employed as a parity drive. Simply put, whenever any kind of data is duplicated on this particular hard drive, one more bit is added to it and in case a problematic disk is replaced, the information that will be cloned on it is a mix of the data on the other disk drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. It's done this way to make sure that the data is intact. Throughout this process, your websites will be up and running normally as RAID-Z enables a whole drive to fail without causing any service disruptions and it simply works by using one of the other ones as the main production drive. Employing RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system which uses checksums to guarantee that no data can get silently corrupted on our servers, you will not need to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS Hosting
The NVMe drives that we use on the physical machines where we set up virtual private servers operate in RAID to make sure that any content you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least a single drive is employed for parity - one bit of information is added to any data cloned on it. In case a main drive breaks down, it is changed and the data that will be copied on it is calculated between the rest of the 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 a part of the RAID afterwards. We also use hard disk drives operating in RAID on the backup servers, so if you add this upgrade to your VPS package, you'll use an even more reliable hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives regardless of any kind of unforeseen hardware malfunction.