Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of storing content on a number of hard drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, but what’s common between them is the fact that they all perform as just a single unit where data is kept. The top advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy since the information on all the drives shall be identical all of the time, so even if one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the information will still be present on the rest of the drives. The overall performance will also improve since the reading and writing processes will be split between a number of drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the effectiveness and fault tolerance can vary depending on the exact setup - whether info is written on all of the drives real-time or it is written on one drive and then mirrored on another, what number of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.

RAID in Cloud Web Hosting

The cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform where all cloud web hosting accounts are made employs fast NVMe drives instead of the standard HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this configuration, a number of hard disks function together and at least one is a dedicated parity disk. Simply put, when data is written on the remaining drives, it's cloned on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is carried out for redundancy as even in case a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, which means that nothing will be lost and there won't be any service interruptions. This is another level of security for your info along with the cutting-edge ZFS file system that uses checksums to ensure that all the data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is saved on NVMe drives that function in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a setup is used for parity - any time data is cloned on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk happens to be defective, it will be removed from the RAID without interrupting the operation of the websites as the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a new drive is included, the information which will be duplicated on it will be a combination between the data on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard disks in the RAID. This is done so as to ensure that the info which is being copied is correct, so the moment the new drive is rebuilt, it can be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is an extra guarantee for the integrity of your information because the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud web hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all the copies of your files on the separate drives to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Hosting

The NVMe drives that we use on the physical machines where we set up virtual private servers function in RAID to make sure that any content you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least one 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 information that will be duplicated on it is calculated between the other drives and the parity one. That’s done to ensure that the right data is copied and that not a single file is corrupted since the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. We also use hard drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so if you add this upgrade to your VPS package, you'll use an even more reliable Internet hosting service since your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any unpredicted hardware malfunction.