Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of keeping content on a number of hard disks at the same time. A RAID could be software or hardware depending on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, still what is common between them is the fact that they all function as just one single unit where data is stored. The key advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy since the data on all of the drives is identical all of the time, so even if one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the data will still be available on the other drives. The general performance is enhanced as well since the reading and writing processes can be split between various drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There are different kinds of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance could differ based on the exact setup - whether info is written on all drives in real time or it is written on a single drive and afterwards mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, and many others.
RAID in Cloud Website Hosting
Our state-of-the-art cloud Internet hosting platform where all cloud website hosting accounts are made employs quick NVMe drives rather than the traditional HDDs, and they work in RAID-Z. With this setup, multiple hard disks work together and at least a single one 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 in case some 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 saved on the other ones, which means that not a thing will be lost and there will be no service disturbances. This is an additional level of security for your info along with the cutting-edge ZFS file system which uses checksums to make sure that all the 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 NVMe drives which operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in this kind of a setup is used for parity - every time data is copied on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk turns out to be defective, it will be taken out of the RAID without interrupting the work of the sites as the data will load from the rest of the drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the data that will be copied on it will be a combination between the information on the parity disk and data kept on the other hard drives in the RAID. That is done in order to ensure that the information that is being copied is accurate, so once the new drive is rebuilt, it could be included in the RAID as a production one. This is an extra guarantee for the integrity of your data since the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud web hosting platform compares a unique checksum of all copies of your files on the different drives to avoid any chance of silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
In case you take advantage of one of our VPS server packages, any content you upload will be stored on NVMe drives which function in RAID. At least a single drive is intended for parity to ensure the integrity of your data. In simple terms, this is a special drive where info is copied with one bit added to it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops working, your websites will continue working and when a new disk takes the place of the faulty one, the bits of the info that will be duplicated on it are calculated using the healthy and the parity drives. This way, any chance of corrupting data throughout the process is prevented. We also employ conventional hard disks which function in RAID for storing backups, so if you add this service to your VPS package, your content will be kept on multiple drives and you won't ever have to worry about its integrity even in the event of multiple drive breakdowns.