Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on several hard disks simultaneously. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, but what’s common between them is the fact that they all perform as a single unit where information is stored. The top advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy because the info on all drives is the same all of the time, so even in case one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the info will still be available on the remaining drives. The overall performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes could be split between different drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance may differ based on the exact setup - whether info is written on all drives in real time or it's written on one drive and then mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Shared Web Hosting
Our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform where all shared web hosting accounts are generated uses super fast NVMe drives instead of the traditional HDDs, and they work in RAID-Z. With this configuration, several hard drives operate together and at least 1 is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the rest of the drives, it is 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, therefore not a thing will be lost and there will not be any service disturbances. This is one more level of protection for your data together with the cutting-edge ZFS file system which uses checksums to guarantee that all data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The info uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is saved on NVMe drives that work in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a configuration is used for parity - whenever data is cloned on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk happens to be flawed, it will be removed from the RAID without interrupting the work of the sites since the data will load from the remaining drives, and when a new drive is included, the info that will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the data on the parity disk and data kept on the other drives in the RAID. That is done to guarantee that the info that is being copied is correct, so as soon as the new drive is rebuilt, it can be incorporated into the RAID as a production one. This is an extra warranty for the integrity of your info since 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 different drives to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
All VPS server accounts that we offer are created on physical servers that use NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity - one extra bit is included in the data cloned on it and if a main disk fails, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged disk drive so that the correct info is recovered on the new drive added to the RAID. In the mean time, your Internet sites will still be online as all the info will still load from at least 1 other drive. If you add routine backups to your VPS plan, a copy of your data will be stored on standard hard drives which also work in RAID because we would like to make sure that any site content you upload will be risk-free all the time. Working with multiple hard disks in RAID for all main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable Internet hosting service.