Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of saving content on a number of hard disks at the same time. A RAID can be software or hardware based on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, yet what’s common between them is the fact that they all work as just a single unit where information is saved. The biggest advantage of using a RAID is redundancy because the info on all the drives shall be the same all the time, so even if a drive fails for some reason, the info will still be present on the remaining drives. The general performance is also enhanced as the reading and writing processes will be split between multiple drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different types of RAIDs where the functionality and fault tolerance could differ based on the particular setup - whether your data is written on all drives real-time or it is written on one drive and afterwards mirrored on another, the number of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.

RAID in Cloud Website Hosting

The NVMe drives which our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform uses 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 employs the so-called parity disk - a special drive where info stored on the other drives is duplicated with an additional bit added to it. In the event that one of the disks stops working, your websites will continue working from the other ones and after we replace the malfunctioning one, the information which will be duplicated on it will be recovered from what is stored on the rest of the drives together with the information from the parity disk. This is performed in order to be able to recalculate the bits of every file correctly and to validate the integrity of the data copied on the new drive. This is another level of security for the info you upload to your cloud website hosting account along with the ZFS file system that compares a special digital fingerprint for every single file on all hard drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The NVMe drives that are used for keeping any website content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer operate in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more disk drives are employed for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data copied on this type of a hard drive. If a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what info will be copied on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the other disks and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that the data on the new drive shall be correct. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue operating normally and the problematic drive will not have an impact on the proper operation of your Internet sites by any means. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an excellent addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our state-of-the-art cloud platform in terms of preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses specific digital identifiers named checksums to prevent silent data corruption.