Data compression is the reduction of the number of bits that should be stored or transmitted and this particular process is quite important in the web hosting field as info filed on hard disk drives is usually compressed so as to take less space. There're many different algorithms for compressing data and they provide different effectiveness depending on the content. A number of them remove just the redundant bits, so no data will be lost, while others delete unnecessary bits, which leads to worse quality when your data is uncompressed. The method requires a lot of processing time, therefore a hosting server needs to be powerful enough so as to be able to compress and uncompress data instantly. One example how binary code could be compressed is by "remembering" that there're five consecutive 1s, for example, in contrast to storing all five 1s.

Data Compression in Cloud Hosting

The compression algorithm which we use on the cloud web hosting platform where your new cloud hosting account will be created is called LZ4 and it's applied by the exceptional ZFS file system which powers the platform. The algorithm is greater than the ones other file systems work with as its compression ratio is a lot higher and it processes data significantly quicker. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens at a faster rate than information can be read from a hard disk. Consequently, LZ4 improves the performance of each Internet site hosted on a server that uses the algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to produce a number of daily backups of the whole content of all accounts and keep them for a month. Not only do our backups take less space, but also their generation will not slow the servers down like it can often happen with various other file systems.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers

Your semi-dedicated server account will be created on a cloud platform which runs using the cutting-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm known as LZ4, that's much better than alternative algorithms when it comes to compression ratio and speed. The gain is visible especially when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 quicker than other algorithms, but it is also quicker in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard drive. That is why websites running on a platform which employs LZ4 compression perform faster since the algorithm is most efficient when it processes compressible data i.e. website content. Another advantage of using LZ4 is that the backup copies of the semi-dedicated accounts that we keep require significantly less space and are generated faster, which enables us to have multiple daily backups of your files and databases.