Data compression is the compacting of info by lowering the number of bits which are stored or transmitted. Thus, the compressed information requires less disk space than the initial one, so additional content can be stored on the same amount of space. You'll find various compression algorithms which function in different ways and with many of them just the redundant bits are deleted, therefore once the information is uncompressed, there is no decrease in quality. Others remove excessive bits, but uncompressing the data afterwards will lead to lower quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content consumes a significant amount of system resources, especially CPU processing time, therefore any hosting platform that uses compression in real time needs to have ample power to support that feature. An example how data can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" how many sequential 1s or 0s there should be instead of storing the entire code.

Data Compression in Web Hosting

The compression algorithm that we employ on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new web hosting account shall be created is named LZ4 and it is used by the advanced ZFS file system which powers the system. The algorithm is much better than the ones other file systems employ since its compression ratio is higher and it processes data significantly quicker. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens even faster than info can be read from a hard disk. Because of this, LZ4 improves the performance of every site located on a server which uses this algorithm. We take full advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make multiple daily backups of the full content of all accounts and store them for 30 days. Not only do these backups take less space, but also their generation doesn't slow the servers down like it often happens with other file systems.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers

In case you host your Internet sites in a semi-dedicated server account with our firm, you'll be able to experience the advantages of LZ4 - the powerful compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system that is behind our advanced cloud web hosting platform. What separates LZ4 from all of the other algorithms out there is that it has an improved compression ratio and it is way quicker, particularly with regard to uncompressing website content. It does that even quicker than uncompressed information can be read from a hard disk drive, so your Internet sites will perform better. The higher speed is at the expense of using a considerable amount of CPU processing time, which is not an issue for our platform because it consists of a large number of clusters working together. Besides the better performance, you'll also have multiple daily backup copies at your disposal, so you'll be able to recover any deleted content with several clicks. The backups are available for an entire month and we can afford to keep them since they take considerably less space than traditional backups.