Data compression is the lowering of the number of bits which should be stored or transmitted and this process is really important in the web hosting field since data stored on hard disk drives is generally compressed so as to take less space. There are many different algorithms for compressing data and they offer different effectiveness based upon the content. A number of them remove only the redundant bits, so that no data will be lost, while others delete unneeded bits, which results in worse quality when the particular data is uncompressed. The method requires a lot of processing time, therefore an internet hosting server needs to be powerful enough to be able to compress and uncompress data quickly. An instance how binary code may be compressed is by "remembering" that there're five consecutive 1s, for example, rather than storing all five 1s.
Data Compression in Shared Hosting
The compression algorithm which we use on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new shared hosting account will be created is named LZ4 and it is used by the advanced ZFS file system which powers the system. The algorithm is better than the ones other file systems use because its compression ratio is much higher and it processes data a lot faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens even faster than info can be read from a hard drive. Consequently, LZ4 improves the performance of each and every Internet site hosted on a server which uses this algorithm. We use LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make a number of daily backups of the full content of all accounts and keep them for thirty days. Not only do the backup copies take less space, but also their generation doesn't 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 that is run on the advanced ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm named LZ4, that is significantly better than alternative algorithms when it comes to compression ratio and speed. The gain is visible particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 quicker than other algorithms, but it is also faster in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a HDD. Because of this Internet sites running on a platform that employs LZ4 compression perform faster as the algorithm is most efficient when it processes compressible data i.e. web content. One more advantage of using LZ4 is that the backups of the semi-dedicated accounts that we keep need much less space and are generated faster, which enables us to keep a number of daily backups of all your files and databases.