Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of keeping content on multiple hard disks concurrently. A RAID can be software or hardware based on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, but what’s common between them is the fact that they all operate as one single unit where data is saved. The top advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy since the data on all of the drives will be the same 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 overall performance is also enhanced since the reading and writing processes could be split between a number of drives, so a single one will not be overloaded. There're different kinds of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance may vary according to the specific setup - whether info is written on all drives real-time or it is written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.

RAID in Shared Website Hosting

Our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform where all shared website hosting accounts are created uses fast SSD drives rather than the traditional HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this configuration, multiple hard disks work together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the rest of the drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is performed for redundancy as even in case some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, so nothing will be lost and there will be no service interruptions. This is an additional level of security for your info together with the top-notch ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that all data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is stored on SSD drives that operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a setup is used for parity - any time data is cloned on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk turns out to be problematic, it will be removed from the RAID without disturbing the work of the websites because the data will load from the rest of the drives, and when a new drive is added, the info that will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the info on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard drives in the RAID. That is done in order to guarantee that the info that is being cloned is correct, so the moment the new drive is rebuilt, it could be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is an extra warranty for the integrity of your info because the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all the copies of the files on the separate drives so as to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

The SSD drives that we use on the physical machines where we set up VPS servers function in RAID to ensure that any content that you upload will be available and intact all of the time. At least 1 drive is employed for parity - one bit of information is added to any data copied on it. In case a main drive breaks down, it is replaced and the data that will be cloned on it is calculated between the rest of the drives and the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the required info is copied and that not a single file is corrupted since the new drive will be used in the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard disk drives functioning in RAID on the backup servers, so in case you add this upgrade to your VPS package, you will use an even more reliable hosting service as your content will be available on multiple drives regardless of any unforeseen hardware failure.