Data compression is the lowering of the number of bits which should be stored or transmitted and this process is quite important in the web hosting field due to the fact that information filed on hard disks is often compressed to take less space. You can find different algorithms for compressing information and they offer different effectiveness based on the content. Many of them remove only the redundant bits, so no data will be lost, while others erase unneeded bits, which results in worse quality when the particular data is uncompressed. The method consumes a lot of processing time, therefore an internet hosting server needs to be powerful enough to be able to compress and uncompress data quickly. One example how binary code can be compressed is by "remembering" that there are five sequential 1s, for example, in contrast to storing all five 1s.
Data Compression in Cloud Website Hosting
The compression algorithm that we use on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new cloud website hosting account will be created is named LZ4 and it's used by the revolutionary ZFS file system which powers the platform. The algorithm is better than the ones other file systems use since its compression ratio is much higher and it processes data considerably quicker. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed as this happens even faster than info can be read from a hard drive. Consequently, LZ4 improves the performance of every site located on a server which uses the algorithm. We use LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio let us produce a number of daily backup copies of the full content of all accounts and store them for a month. Not only do the backup copies take less space, but also their generation doesn't slow the servers down like it often happens with various other file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers
In case you host your websites in a semi-dedicated server account with our company, you can experience the advantages of LZ4 - the powerful compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system that's behind our advanced cloud hosting platform. What distinguishes LZ4 from all other algorithms out there is that it has a better compression ratio and it is considerably quicker, particularly when it comes to uncompressing website content. It does that even faster than uncompressed data can be read from a hard disk drive, so your sites will perform better. The higher speed is at the expense of using a great deal of CPU processing time, that's not a problem for our platform as it consists of a large number of clusters working together. Along with the improved performance, you'll have multiple daily backup copies at your disposal, so you'll be able to recover any deleted content with a few clicks. The backup copies are available for an entire month and we can afford to store them since they take significantly less space than ordinary backups.