Redundant Array of Independent Disks, or RAID, is a method of keeping content on multiple hard drives at the same time. A RAID might be software or hardware depending on the HDDs that are used - physical or logical ones, but what’s common between them is the fact that they all work as just one single unit where information is kept. The key advantage of employing a RAID is redundancy because the data on all the drives shall be exactly the same at all times, so even in case one of the drives fails for whatever reason, the information will still be available on the remaining drives. The general performance will also improve as the reading and writing processes will be split between various drives, so a single one can't be overloaded. There're different sorts of RAIDs where the performance and fault tolerance may differ according to the exact setup - whether data is written on all the drives in real time or it's written on a single drive and after that mirrored on another, what amount of drives are used for the RAID, etc.
RAID in Cloud Web Hosting
The disk drives which we employ for storage with our revolutionary cloud Internet hosting platform are not the classic HDDs, but extremely fast NVMes. They operate in RAID-Z - a special setup designed for the ZFS file system that we employ. All the content that you add to your cloud web hosting account will be kept on multiple hard drives and at least 1 shall be employed as a parity disk. This is a specific drive where an extra bit is included to any content copied on it. If a disk in the RAID stops working, it'll be replaced without any service disturbances and the information will be rebuilt on the new drive by recalculating its bits using the data on the parity disk plus that on the remaining disks. This is done so as to guarantee the integrity of the data and along with the real-time checksum validation that the ZFS file system executes on all drives, you will never need to worry about the loss of any data no matter what.
RAID in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The RAID type which we use for the cloud Internet hosting platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created is known as RAID-Z. What is different about it is that at least 1 of the disks is used as a parity drive. Simply put, whenever any kind of data is cloned on this particular hard drive, one more bit is added to it and in the event that a faulty disk is replaced, the data that will be cloned on it is a mix of the data on the remaining disk drives in the RAID and that on the parity one. It's done this way to guarantee that your information is intact. Throughout this process, your sites will be functioning normally since RAID-Z enables an entire drive to fail without any service disturbances and it simply works by using one of the other ones as the main production drive. Using RAID-Z together with the ZFS file system that uses checksums to ensure that no data will get silently corrupted on our servers, you won't ever have to worry about the integrity of your files.
RAID in VPS
All virtual private server accounts that our company offers are generated on physical servers that employ NVMe drives operating in RAID. At least one drive is used for parity - one extra bit is included in the info cloned on it and if a main disk fails, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged drive so that the right data is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. At the same time, your sites will still be online because all the data will still load from at least one more hard disk. In the event that you add routine backups to your VPS package, a copy of the info will be stored on standard hard drives that also work in RAID since we would like to make certain that any kind of site content you add will be protected all of the time. Using multiple hard disks in RAID for all the main and backup servers allows us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.