Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a way of saving content on several hard disks at the same time. A RAID can be software or hardware depending on the drives which are used - physical or logical ones, however what’s common between them is the fact that they all operate as just a single unit where information is saved. The top advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy as the data on all of the drives will be identical all of the time, so even in the event that some drive fails for some reason, the information will still be available on the other drives. The general performance is also better as the reading and writing processes can be split between different drives, so a single one won't be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the capabilities and fault tolerance may differ depending on the exact setup - whether info is written on all drives in real time or it is written on one drive and after that mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etcetera.
RAID in Website Hosting
The disk drives which we use for storage with our outstanding cloud hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but high-speed NVMes. They function in RAID-Z - a special setup developed for the ZFS file system that we work with. All the content that you upload to the website hosting account will be saved on multiple drives and at least one of them shall be used as a parity disk. This is a special drive where a further bit is added to any content copied on it. In the event that a disk in the RAID stops working, it will be replaced with no service disruptions and the info will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits thanks to the data on the parity disk along with that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to ensure the integrity of the data and together with the real-time checksum authentication that the ZFS file system runs on all drives, you will never need to concern yourself with losing any information no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers
The NVMe drives which are used for saving any content uploaded to the semi-dedicated server accounts that we provide operate in RAID-Z. This is a special configuration where one or more drives are used for parity i.e. the system will include an additional bit to any data copied on this type of a hard drive. If a disk fails and is substituted with another one, what info will be cloned on the latter will be a mix calculated between the data on the other disks and that on the parity one. This is done to make sure that the information on the new drive will be correct. Throughout the process, the RAID will continue operating adequately and the problematic drive won't have an impact on the normal operation of your sites in any way. Working with NVMes in RAID-Z is a superb addition to the ZFS file system which runs on our cutting-edge cloud platform with regards to preserving the integrity of your files since ZFS uses unique digital identifiers called checksums so as to prevent silent data corruption.
RAID in VPS Servers
The physical servers where we make VPS server work with high-speed NVMe drives that will boost the speed of your sites substantially. The disk drives work in RAID to ensure that you will not lose any data as a result of a power loss or a hardware breakdown. The production servers use multiple drives where the information is saved and one disk is used for parity i.e. one bit is added to all of the data copied on it, that makes it much easier to restore the content without any loss if a main drive fails. If you take advantage of our backup service, your information will be stored on an individual machine which uses standard hard-disk drives and although there isn't a parity one in this case, they are also in a RAID to guarantee that we will have a backup copy of your site content all the time. With this kind of setup your information will always be safe as it will be available on several disk drives.