RAID
Learn what exactly RAID is and also just how RAID systems work. What are the primary advantages of being hosted on a RAID-powered server?
RAID, which is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a software or hardware storage virtualization technology that permits a system to take advantage of a number of hard drives as one single logical unit. Simply put, all of the drives are used as one and the information on all of them is the same. This type of a configuration has two key advantages over using just a single drive to store data - the first is redundancy, so in the event that one drive breaks down, the info will be accessed from the others, and the second one is improved performance as the input/output, or reading/writing operations will be spread among multiple drives. There are different RAID types based on how many drives are used, if reading and writing are both done from all 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, and many others. Based on the particular setup, the error tolerance and the performance may differ.
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RAID in Cloud Hosting
The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud hosting platform employs for storage work in RAID-Z. This kind of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it takes advantage of the so-called parity disk - a special drive where information stored on the other drives is cloned with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks stops working, your sites will continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the malfunctioning one, the information which will be duplicated on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the other drives along with the data from the parity disk. This is performed so as to be able to recalculate the bits of every single file properly and to verify the integrity of the info cloned on the new drive. This is another level of security for the information which you upload to your
cloud hosting account in addition to the ZFS file system that compares a unique digital fingerprint for every single file on all the drives in real time.
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RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The RAID type which we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your
semi-dedicated server account shall be created is known as RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least one of the disks is used as a parity drive. In simple terms, whenever any data is cloned on this specific hard drive, one more bit is included to it and if a faulty disk is replaced, the data that will be copied on it is a combination of the data on the other hard disks in the RAID and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the information is intact. Throughout this process, your sites will be functioning normally because RAID-Z allows for an entire drive to fail without any service disruptions 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 that uses checksums to warrant that no data can get silently corrupted on our servers, you'll never have to worry about the integrity of your files.
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RAID in VPS Servers
If you use one of our
VPS server plans, any content which you upload will be stored on NVMe drives which work in RAID. At least a single drive is employed for parity to guarantee the integrity of the information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. In the event that a disk in the RAID breaks down, your websites will continue working and when a new disk substitutes the flawed one, the bits of the information that will be duplicated on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is avoided. We also use conventional hard disk drives which work in RAID for storing backups, so in case you add this service to your VPS plan, your website content will be stored on multiple drives and you will never need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.