What is RAID?
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a data storage technology that combines multiple physical drives (HDDs or SSDs) into one or more logical units to improve data performance, reliability (redundancy), or both, by spreading data across drives using methods like striping (speed) or mirroring (copying). It makes two or more disks act as a single, faster, or safer drive, with various "levels" (like RAID 0, 1, 5, 10) offering different trade-offs between speed, capacity, and data protection. RAID can be provided by two distinct sources: either Software RAID, which is RAID managed at an operating system level, or Hardware RAID, which is RAID managed through a dedicated hardware add-on card.
What type of RAID does my server have?
Depending on your specific server we supply either hardware or software RAID1. If you are after other RAID options, this can be discussed with our sales team on the purchase of your server.
Why does my server have RAID?
All of our dedicated servers have a minimum of RAID 1 as part of our hardware SLA. This is to ensure that in case of a hard drive failure, we are able to replace the faulty drive without you suffering any data loss.
Does my VPS or other virtualisation-based service have RAID?
Yes, or something equivalent. The redundancy on our virtualised services is made at the platform level, so while your server operating systems will only see a simple disk, the platform it runs on is built on redundant storage.
Does RAID mean I don’t need backups?
No. RAID of any kind is not a form of backup. RAID 1 keeps a copy of all data from disk a on disk b as well, but this data is updated in real time, so any changes written to the raid are written to both disks simultaneously.
I need more disk space. Can I break the RAID to use all of the space, or use RAID 0?
This is absolutely possible on a technical level, this would also wipe data on the drives and would nullify our hardware SLA when it comes to hard drive replacement. Without a redundant form of RAID, RAID 0 is not redundant; any failure of a disk will cause you to lose data. If you need more space on a service, please contact our Sales Team on 1300 788 862.