RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for keeping data on a number hard disks that work together as a single logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the second case one drive is split into different ones through virtualization software. In any case, identical info is stored on all the drives and the main advantage of using this kind of a setup is that if a drive breaks down, the data will still be available on the remaining ones. Employing a RAID also enhances the overall performance as the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several kinds of RAID dependant upon how many hard disks are used, whether writing is carried out on all the drives in real time or just on one, and how the data is synced between the hard drives - whether it is recorded in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors imply that the error tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types may differ.

RAID in Cloud Web Hosting

The SSD drives that our cutting-edge cloud web hosting platform uses for storage operate in RAID-Z. This type of RAID is created to work with the ZFS file system which runs on the platform and it works by using the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where information stored on the other drives is cloned with an extra bit added to it. If one of the disks stops functioning, your Internet sites shall continue working from the other ones and as soon as we replace the bad one, the info which will be cloned on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives together with the info from the parity disk. This is performed in order to be able to recalculate the bits of each and every file properly and to verify the integrity of the info copied on the new drive. This is another level of security for the content which you upload to your cloud web hosting account along with the ZFS file system which analyzes a unique digital fingerprint for each and every file on all of the hard drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting

The information uploaded to any semi-dedicated hosting account is saved on SSD drives which function in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a configuration is used for parity - whenever data is cloned on it, an additional bit is added. In case a disk happens to be problematic, it will be taken out of the RAID without interrupting the work of the sites because the data will load from the other drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the information which will be copied on it will be a combination between the data on the parity disk and data saved on the other hard drives in the RAID. This is done in order to guarantee that the data that is being duplicated is accurate, so once the new drive is rebuilt, it could be included in the RAID as a production one. This is an extra warranty for the integrity of your information since the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud web hosting platform compares a unique checksum of all of the copies of the files on the various drives so as to avoid any possibility of silent data corruption.