Data compression is the compacting of data by reducing the number of bits which are stored or transmitted. In this way, the compressed info needs much less disk space than the original one, so a lot more content can be stored using identical amount of space. You can find various compression algorithms which function in different ways and with several of them only the redundant bits are deleted, which means that once the info is uncompressed, there is no decrease in quality. Others remove excessive bits, but uncompressing the data later will result in reduced quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content needs a significant amount of system resources, in particular CPU processing time, therefore each and every web hosting platform which uses compression in real time needs to have sufficient power to support that attribute. An example how data can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" the number of consecutive 1s or 0s there should be instead of keeping the entire code.

Data Compression in Cloud Website Hosting

The compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud hosting platform is named LZ4. It can improve the performance of any site hosted in a cloud website hosting account on our end because not only does it compress data significantly better than algorithms used by various other file systems, but it also uncompresses data at speeds that are higher than the HDD reading speeds. This is achieved by using a great deal of CPU processing time, that is not a problem for our platform considering that it uses clusters of powerful servers working together. An additional advantage of LZ4 is that it enables us to generate backup copies more quickly and on reduced disk space, so we shall have a couple of daily backups of your files and databases and their generation won't influence the performance of the servers. That way, we could always recover any content that you could have deleted by accident.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you host your sites in a semi-dedicated hosting account from our firm, you will be able to experience the advantages of LZ4 - the powerful compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system which is behind our advanced cloud web hosting platform. What differentiates LZ4 from all the other algorithms out there is that it has a better compression ratio and it is considerably faster, particularly with regard to uncompressing website content. It does that even quicker than uncompressed data can be read from a hard drive, so your sites will perform better. The higher speed is at the expense of using a considerable amount of CPU processing time, that is not a problem for our platform because it consists of a large number of clusters working together. Along with the superior performance, you will also have multiple daily backups at your disposal, so you can recover any deleted content with a few clicks. The backup copies are available for an entire month and we can afford to store them as they need significantly less space compared to traditional backups.