Data compression is the compacting of data by reducing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. Because of this, the compressed info will need considerably less disk space than the initial one, so a lot more content could be stored using identical amount of space. You'll find different compression algorithms that function in different ways and with a number of them only the redundant bits are deleted, so once the data is uncompressed, there is no loss of quality. Others erase unneeded bits, but uncompressing the data afterwards will lead to lower quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content consumes a large amount of system resources, and in particular CPU processing time, so every Internet hosting platform that employs compression in real time should have adequate power to support that feature. An example how info can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" what number of consecutive 1s or 0s there should be instead of storing the actual code.
Data Compression in Cloud Hosting
The compression algorithm which we employ on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new cloud hosting account shall be created is called LZ4 and it's applied by the leading-edge ZFS file system that powers the system. The algorithm is much better than the ones other file systems employ because its compression ratio is much higher and it processes data a lot faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed as this happens even faster than information can be read from a hdd. As a result, LZ4 improves the performance of every Internet site hosted on a server that uses this algorithm. We take full advantage of LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio let us make a number of daily backups of the whole content of all accounts and keep them for one month. Not only do our backups take less space, but also their generation won't slow the servers down like it can often happen with some other file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers
Your semi-dedicated server account will be created on a cloud platform that runs on the advanced ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm known as LZ4, that's much better than alternative algorithms in terms of compression ratio and speed. The gain is visible particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 faster than other algorithms, but it is also quicker in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard drive. Because of this Internet sites running on a platform that employs LZ4 compression perform faster since the algorithm is most effective when it processes compressible data i.e. site content. An additional advantage of using LZ4 is that the backup copies of the semi-dedicated accounts which we keep take significantly less space and they are generated a lot faster, which enables us to keep several daily backups of all your files and databases.