RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of storing data on several hard disks which function together as a single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the second case a single drive is divided into individual ones via virtualization software. In either case, identical data is saved on all of the drives and the basic benefit of employing this kind of a setup is that in case a drive fails, the data shall still be available on the other ones. Employing a RAID also boosts the overall performance because the input and output operations will be spread among a number of drives. There are several kinds of RAID depending on how many drives are used, whether writing is performed on all drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the info is synchronized between the hard drives - whether it is recorded in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors suggest that the fault tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types may differ.
RAID in Website Hosting
The state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform where all website hosting accounts are generated employs fast SSD drives rather than the traditional HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this configuration, numerous hard disk drives function together and at least 1 is a dedicated parity disk. Put simply, when data is written on the other drives, it's duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even in case some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the data can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data recorded on the other ones, which means that nothing will be lost and there will be no service interruptions. This is another level of security for your information along with the top-notch ZFS file system which uses checksums to guarantee that all the data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The SSD drives which are used for holding any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated hosting accounts which we offer function in RAID-Z. This is a special setup where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an extra bit to any data copied on such a drive. If a disk fails and is replaced with another one, what info will be cloned on the latter shall be a mix calculated between the data on the remaining drives and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the information on the new drive shall be correct. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue working adequately and the faulty drive won't have an impact on the normal operation of your websites in any respect. Using SSDs in RAID-Z is a great addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our cutting-edge cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files because ZFS uses unique digital identifiers identified as checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Web Hosting
In case you employ one of our virtual private server packages, any content which you upload will be saved on SSD drives which work in RAID. At least 1 drive is intended for parity so as to ensure the integrity of your information. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. In case a disk in the RAID fails, your sites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the flawed one, the bits of the data that will be cloned on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. That way, any potential for corrupting data during the process is avoided. We also use standard hard disks that function in RAID for storing backups, so in case you add this service to your VPS plan, your site content will be saved on multiple drives and you will never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.