Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on a number of hard drives concurrently. A RAID could be software or hardware based on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is the fact that they all perform as just a single unit where information is saved. The top advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the information on all of the drives shall be identical all of the time, so even in case a drive fails for some reason, the data will still be available on the rest of the drives. The general performance is also enhanced since the reading and writing processes can be split between different drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There are different kinds of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance may vary based on the specific setup - whether data is written on all of the drives in real time or it is written on one drive and then mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Shared Web Hosting
The drives which we use for storage with our revolutionary cloud web hosting platform are not the standard HDDs, but fast NVMes. They work in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system that we work with. All the content that you upload to your shared web hosting account will be held on multiple hard disks and at least 1 shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a special drive where an extra bit is included to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops working, it will be changed with no service disruptions and the data will be recovered on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk along with that on the remaining disks. This is done to ensure the integrity of the information and along with the real-time checksum validation which the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you will never need to worry about losing any info no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type that we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is named 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 cloned on this special drive, one more bit is included to it and in the event that a defective disk is replaced, the information that will be cloned on it is a mix of the data on the other hard drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the info is intact. During this process, your Internet sites will be up and running normally since RAID-Z allows for a whole drive to fail without causing any service disturbances and it simply works by using one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Employing RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system which uses checksums to warrant that no data shall get silently corrupted on our servers, you won't ever have to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS
All virtual private server accounts which our company offers are generated on physical servers which employ NVMe drives working in RAID. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one extra bit is included in the data duplicated on it and if a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged hard disk so that the correct info is recovered on the new drive included in the RAID. Meanwhile, your websites will stay online since all the data will still load from at least 1 more drive. In case you add routine backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the info will be saved on standard hard drives that also work in RAID as we would like to make sure that any sort of site content you add will be safe and sound at all times. Using multiple hard disks in RAID for all of the main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable Internet hosting service.