Data compression is the decrease of the number of bits which have to be stored or transmitted and the process is really important in the web hosting field because information located on hard disks is usually compressed so as to take less space. There are various algorithms for compressing data and they have different efficiency depending on the content. A number of them remove only the redundant bits, so that no data will be lost, while others remove unneeded bits, which leads to worse quality when the particular data is uncompressed. The method employs a lot of processing time, therefore a hosting server needs to be powerful enough to be able to compress and uncompress data instantly. One example how binary code can be compressed is by "remembering" that there're five consecutive 1s, for example, as an alternative to storing all five 1s.
Data Compression in Cloud Hosting
The compression algorithm which we employ on the cloud hosting platform where your new cloud hosting
account shall be created is named LZ4 and it is used by the revolutionary ZFS file system which powers the platform. The algorithm is greater than the ones other file systems work with since its compression ratio is much higher and it processes data considerably faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed as this happens faster than information can be read from a hard disk. Therefore, LZ4 improves the performance of every site hosted on a server that uses this particular algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to generate a number of daily backup copies of the whole content of all accounts and store them for 30 days. Not only do our backups take less space, but also their generation does not slow the servers down like it can often happen with many other file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting
Your semi-dedicated hosting
account will be created on a cloud platform that runs on the cutting-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm named LZ4, that's far better than all the other algorithms when it comes to compression ratio and speed. The gain is noticeable particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much quicker than other algorithms, but it is also quicker in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a HDD. This is why sites running on a platform that employs LZ4 compression perform better since the algorithm is most effective when it processes compressible data i.e. site content. Another advantage of using LZ4 is that the backups of the semi-dedicated accounts which we keep need significantly less space and they are generated a lot quicker, which allows us to store a couple of daily backups of all your files and databases.