The Dedicated Server builder allows you to add multiple disk drives to your server. This results in many potential disk drive configurations.
What are disk drive configurations?
Disk drive configurations consist of a group of disk drives configured in such a way as to increase read/write speed and/or redundancy.
| Redundancy |
Redundancy means other drives contain copies of all the data. If a drive fails, there is a disk drive that can step up and take the failing drive’s place. With all the data still available, no data will be lost and the server will be able to continue functioning.
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| Read Speed |
Read speed is how fast the data can be retrieved from the disk drive by the server.
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| Write Speed |
Write speed is how fast the data can be changed on the disk drive by the server.
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Disk drive configurations can use different methods to accomplish the above goals, such as the two below:
Striping
Striping splits files apart and stores them on separate drives. It can increase server speed because each drive can be accessed at the same time to retrieve data.
Mirroring
Mirroring means that copies of your server data are created on two or more drives. The data on the disk drives will “mirror” each other. With each server change, the mirrored drives will be updated. If a drive fails, the other drive will be used for data recovery and keep the server up and functional. This establishes redundancy.
What packages can I get them on?
You can get specific disk drive configurations on Dedicated Server hosting packages.
If you are building a dedicated server with our Dedicated Server Configurator, you can select multiple disk drives during the creation process. If enough disk drives are selected, we will be able to create a specific disk drive configuration that uses one of the above methods for you. However, you must let us know what technique you would like before it can be added to your account. To request a specific technique, you can contact our sales team and they will be able to set it up for you.
If you already have a dedicated server, you can contact our sales team to have the technique and corresponding disk drive configuration added to your account.
What type of disk drive configurations do I want?
The methods listed above require a certain disk drive configuration to work correctly.
Mirror
Number of Disk Drives Required: 2 or 4 disks of the same size
Mirror configurations establish data mirroring. Mirroring means that two or more drives contain all the server data. With each server change, the disk drives will update. If a drive fails, the other drive will be used for data recovery and keep the server up and functional.
While it does slow your server down in terms of write speed (since data must be written to both drives because of mirroring), the read speed is very good. It also protects your server and data in case of a drive failure.
If you wish to have a mirror disk drive configuration added to your dedicated server, contact our sales team.
Striped Mirror
Number of Disk Drives Required: 4 disks of the same size
Striped mirror uses both striping and mirroring to increase speed and establish redundancy. Unlike just mirroring, a striped mirror can achieve both because it creates two drives that use striping, then mirrors them on the other two drives.
If you are creating a new dedicated server, you can select 4 additional drives and our team will automatically configure them into a striped mirror configuration. However, if you have an existing dedicated server, contact our sales team and they will be able to set one up for you.