RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology of keeping data on several hard disks that function together as one logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the aforementioned case one single drive is divided into independent ones using virtualization software. In either case, the very same information is saved on all drives and the key benefit of using this type of a setup is that in the event that a drive fails, the data will remain available on the other ones. Having a RAID also boosts the performance as the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several types of RAID depending on how many hard disks are used, whether writing is carried out on all the drives in real time or just on a single one, and how the info 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 imply that the error tolerance and the performance between the various RAID types may differ.
RAID in Cloud Hosting
Our state-of-the-art cloud web hosting platform where all cloud hosting accounts are generated uses super fast SSD drives as opposed to the traditional HDDs, and they work in RAID-Z. With this configuration, a number of hard disk drives operate together and at least 1 is a dedicated parity disk. Put simply, when data is written on the rest of the drives, it is duplicated on the parity one adding an extra bit. This is done for redundancy as even if a drive fails or falls out of the RAID for whatever reason, the information can be rebuilt and verified thanks to the parity disk and the data stored on the other ones, thus not a single thing will be lost and there will not be any service disorders. This is one more level of security for your information together with the state-of-the-art 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 Servers
The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is kept on SSD drives that operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in type of a setup is used for parity - whenever data is cloned on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk happens to be flawed, it will be removed from the RAID without disturbing the work of the sites because the data will load from the other drives, and when a brand new drive is included, the information that will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the information on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard disks in the RAID. This is done in order to ensure that the info which is being duplicated is correct, so as soon as the new drive is rebuilt, it could be integrated into the RAID as a production one. This is an additional guarantee for the integrity of your information since the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud Internet hosting platform compares a special checksum of all of the copies of your files on the various drives so as to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
If you take advantage of one of our VPS server solutions, any content which you upload will be kept on SSD drives that function in RAID. At least one drive is intended for parity to guarantee the integrity of the info. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. If a disk within the RAID stops working, your websites will continue working and when a new disk replaces the faulty one, the bits of the info that will be duplicated on it are calculated by using the healthy and the parity drives. By doing this, any potential for corrupting data during the process is averted. We also employ regular hard disk drives which function in RAID for storing backup copies, so in case you include this service to your VPS package, your site content will be kept on multiple drives and you won't ever need to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.