RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for storing data on a number hard drives that function together as one logical unit. The drives can be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case one single drive is divided into separate ones via virtualization software. In either case, the same data is saved on all of the drives and the basic benefit of using this kind of a setup is that in case a drive stops working, the data will still be available on the remaining ones. Using 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 based on how many drives are used, whether writing is performed on all drives in real time or just on one, and how the information is synced between the hard drives - whether it is written in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors imply that the fault tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types can differ.
RAID in Shared Hosting
The advanced cloud web hosting platform where all shared hosting accounts are created uses quick NVMe drives rather than the traditional HDDs, and they operate in RAID-Z. With this setup, multiple hard disks operate together and at least a single one is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the remaining drives, it's copied 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 data can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data saved on the other ones, thus nothing will be lost and there won't be any service disorders. This is one more level of protection for your data in addition to the advanced ZFS file system which uses checksums to ensure that all the data on our servers is intact and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The RAID type that we use for the cloud hosting platform where your semi-dedicated server account will be created is referred to as RAID-Z. What's different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is used as a parity drive. In simple terms, whenever any data is copied on this specific drive, one more bit is added to it and in case a malfunctioning disk is changed, the info which will be cloned on it is a mix of the data on the other hard disks in the RAID and that on the parity one. This is done to ensure that your info is intact. Throughout this process, your Internet sites will be up and running normally because RAID-Z makes it possible for a whole drive to fail without causing any service disturbances and it simply uses one of the remaining ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to warrant that no data can get silently corrupted on our servers, you won't have to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS Servers
If you employ one of our VPS server packages, any content that you upload will be kept on NVMe drives which operate in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity to guarantee the integrity of your info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where information is copied with one bit added to it. In the event that a disk inside the RAID stops functioning, your websites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the faulty one, the bits of the data that will be duplicated on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any probability of corrupting data during the process is avoided. We also employ standard hard disk drives that operate in RAID for storing backup copies, so in case you include this service to your VPS plan, your content will be kept on multiple drives and you'll never have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive failures.