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 one drive is divided into separate ones using virtualization software. In any case, identical info is stored on all of the drives and the basic benefit of using such a setup is that in case a drive stops working, the data will still be available on the remaining ones. Using a RAID also boosts the overall performance because the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several types of RAID depending on how many drives are used, whether writing is performed on all of the drives in real time or just on one, and how the information is synced between the hard drives - whether it's recorded in blocks on one drive after another or all of it is mirrored from one on the others. All of these factors show that the error tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types could differ.
RAID in Cloud Web Hosting
Our revolutionary cloud web hosting platform where all cloud web hosting
accounts are made uses quick SSD drives rather than the traditional HDDs, and they function in RAID-Z. With this setup, multiple hard drives operate together and at least one of them is a dedicated parity disk. Basically, when data is written on the other drives, it's cloned on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is performed for redundancy as even if some drive fails or falls out of the RAID for some reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified using the parity disk and the data stored 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 info in addition to the top-notch ZFS file system which uses checksums to ensure that all data on our servers is undamaged and is not silently corrupted.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type which we employ for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting
account shall be created is called RAID-Z. What is different about it is that at least one of the disks is used as a parity drive. Put simply, whenever any data is duplicated on this specific disk drive, one more bit is included to it and in the event that a malfunctioning disk is replaced, the data that will be duplicated on it is a combination of the data on the other drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. It's done this way to guarantee that the information is intact. Throughout this process, your websites will be functioning normally because RAID-Z allows for an entire drive to fail without any service disruptions and it simply uses one of the other ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system which uses checksums to warrant that no data will get silently corrupted on our servers, you will not need to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS Hosting
The SSD drives that we use on the machines where we set up virtual private servers
work in RAID to make sure that any content you upload will be available and intact all the time. At least one drive is employed for parity - one bit of info is added to any data cloned on it. If a main drive fails, it is replaced and the data that will be copied on it is calculated between the other drives and the parity one. That’s done to ensure that the required data is copied and that not a single file is corrupted as the new drive will be incorporated into the RAID afterwards. Also, we use hard drives working in RAID on the backup servers, so in case you add this upgrade to your VPS plan, you will use an even more reliable web hosting service because your content will be available on multiple drives irrespective of any type of unexpected hardware failure.