Data compression is the decrease of the number of bits that should be saved or transmitted and this process is very important in the web hosting field because info stored on hard disk drives is generally compressed so as to take less space. There're various algorithms for compressing data and they provide different effectiveness depending on the content. Some of them remove just the redundant bits, so no data can be lost, while others erase unnecessary bits, which results in worse quality when the particular data is uncompressed. This method requires a lot of processing time, so an internet hosting server has to be powerful enough so as to be able to compress and uncompress data instantly. An illustration how binary code could be compressed is by "remembering" that there're five sequential 1s, for example, as an alternative to storing all five 1s.
Data Compression in Shared Web Hosting
The compression algorithm that we use on the cloud hosting platform where your new shared web hosting account shall be created is known as LZ4 and it's applied by the cutting-edge ZFS file system which powers the platform. The algorithm is much better than the ones other file systems work with since its compression ratio is much higher and it processes data a lot quicker. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed as this happens even faster than info can be read from a hard disk drive. As a result, LZ4 improves the performance of every Internet site located on a server which uses this particular algorithm. We take full advantage of LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make several daily backup copies of the full content of all accounts and keep them for thirty days. Not only do our backup copies take less space, but in addition their generation does not slow the servers down like it often happens with alternative file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting
Your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created on a cloud platform which is run on the leading-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm called LZ4, which is much better than various other algorithms regarding compression ratio and speed. The gain is noticeable particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much quicker than other algorithms, but it is also quicker in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard drive. That's why Internet sites running on a platform that uses LZ4 compression perform better as the algorithm is most efficient when it processes compressible data i.e. site content. An additional advantage of using LZ4 is that the backups of the semi-dedicated accounts that we keep need less space and are generated a lot faster, which enables us to store a couple of daily backups of all your files and databases.