Data compression is the compacting of info by reducing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. This way, the compressed data will require substantially less disk space than the original one, so additional content can be stored on identical amount of space. You'll find different compression algorithms that function in different ways and with a number of them just the redundant bits are deleted, therefore once the info is uncompressed, there is no loss of quality. Others erase unneeded bits, but uncompressing the data afterwards will lead to reduced quality compared to the original. Compressing and uncompressing content needs a huge amount of system resources, and in particular CPU processing time, therefore each and every hosting platform that uses compression in real time needs to have adequate power to support this feature. An example how data can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" the number of sequential 1s or 0s there should be instead of saving the actual code.

Data Compression in Web Hosting

The compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud hosting platform is called LZ4. It can enhance the performance of any site hosted in a web hosting account on our end as not only does it compress info more efficiently than algorithms used by various other file systems, but also uncompresses data at speeds that are higher than the HDD reading speeds. This is achieved by using a lot of CPU processing time, that is not a problem for our platform owing to the fact that it uses clusters of powerful servers working together. An additional advantage of LZ4 is that it enables us to make backup copies at a higher speed and on reduced disk space, so we shall have several daily backups of your databases and files and their generation will not change the performance of the servers. In this way, we can always restore the content that you may have erased by mistake.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you host your sites in a semi-dedicated server account from our firm, you can 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 other algorithms out there is that it has a better compression ratio and it is considerably quicker, especially with regard to uncompressing website content. It does that even faster than uncompressed info 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 lot of CPU processing time, that's not a problem for our platform because it consists of numerous clusters working together. Along with the better performance, you will also have multiple daily backup copies at your disposal, so you'll be able to restore any deleted content with just a couple of clicks. The backup copies are available for an entire month and we can afford to keep them because they take considerably less space compared to conventional backups.