RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of storing data on a number hard disks which operate together as one logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the second case a single drive is divided into independent ones via virtualization software. Either way, exactly the same data is kept on all the drives and the key advantage of using such a setup is that in case a drive stops working, the data will remain available on the other ones. Employing a RAID also enhances the performance since the input and output operations will be spread among a few drives. There are several kinds of RAID depending on how many hard disks are used, whether writing is performed on all the drives in real time or just on one, and how the data is synchronized between the drives - whether it is recorded in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors show that the fault tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types could differ.
RAID in Shared Website Hosting
The disk drives which we employ for storage with our state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform are not the traditional HDDs, but high-speed NVMes. They operate in RAID-Z - a special setup created for the ZFS file system which we use. All of the content that you add to the shared website hosting account will be held on multiple hard disks and at least one shall be used as a parity disk. This is a special drive where a further bit is included to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops working, it'll be changed with no service disturbances and the info will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk along with that on the other disks. This is done to ensure the integrity of the information and along with the real-time checksum validation that the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you won't ever need to be concerned about losing any information no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The NVMe drives that are used for holding any site content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we offer work in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more disk drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data duplicated on such a disk drive. In case that a disk fails and is substituted with a new one, what information will be duplicated on the latter shall be a combination calculated between the data on the remaining hard disks and that on the parity one. This is done to guarantee that the info on the new drive will be accurate. Throughout the procedure, the RAID will continue operating normally and the problematic drive won't have an effect on the normal operation of your Internet sites in any respect. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is an excellent addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our top-notch cloud platform with regard to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses specific digital identifiers named checksums to avoid silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
All VPS server accounts that our company provides are generated on physical servers that employ NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity - one extra bit is included in the information cloned on it and if a main disk stops working, this bit makes it much simpler to recalculate the bits of the files on the failed hard disk so that the correct info is restored on the new drive included in the RAID. Meanwhile, your Internet sites will stay online as all the info will still load from at least one more hard disk. In case you add routine backups to your VPS package, a copy of the data will be stored on standard hard drives which also operate in RAID as we want to make sure that any sort of site content you add will be risk-free at all times. Using multiple drives in RAID for all the main and backup servers permits us to offer fast and reliable web hosting service.