RAID
What is RAID? How exactly does RAID work? Become aware of the benefits of having a RAID-equipped server.
RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for storing data on several hard drives which work together as one single logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case a single drive is split into independent ones via virtualization software. Either way, exactly the same information is kept on all drives and the main benefit of employing such a setup is that in the event that a drive stops working, the data will still be available on the other ones. Employing a RAID also improves the overall performance since the input and output operations will be spread among a few drives. There are several types of RAID dependant upon how many drives are used, whether writing is done on all of the drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the data is synchronized between the drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors mean that the error tolerance as well as the performance between the different RAID types may differ.
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RAID in Hosting
Our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform where all
hosting accounts are created uses quick NVMe drives as opposed to the standard HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this setup, multiple hard disk drives work together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the remaining drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is performed for redundancy as even in case a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the data can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data stored on the other ones, thus nothing will be lost and there will not be any service interruptions. This is an additional level of security for your information together with the top-notch ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that all the data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.
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RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type which we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your
semi-dedicated hosting account will be created is known as RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is used as a parity drive. Simply put, whenever any data is cloned on this specific disk drive, one more bit is included to it and if a defective disk is changed, the data which will be cloned on it is a mix of the data on the other hard drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the info is intact. During this process, your Internet sites will be functioning normally since RAID-Z makes it possible for a whole drive to fail without causing any service disturbances and it simply works by using one of the other ones as the main production drive. Employing RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to guarantee that no data shall get silently corrupted on our servers, you will never need to worry about the integrity of your files.
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RAID in VPS Web Hosting
The NVMe drives which we use on the physical machines where we create
virtual private servers function in RAID to make sure that any content you upload will be available and intact at all times. At least a single drive is used for parity - one bit of info is added to any data copied on it. In the event that a main drive breaks down, it is replaced and the info that will be cloned on it is calculated between the remaining drives and the parity one. It's done this way to ensure that the right data is copied and that not a single file is corrupted because the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. In addition, we use hard drives functioning in RAID on the backup servers, so in the event that you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you'll use an even more reliable Internet hosting service as your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any kind of sudden hardware failure.