Data compression is the decrease of the number of bits that need to be stored or transmitted and the process is rather important in the internet hosting field because information filed on hard disks is generally compressed in order to take less space. You can find different algorithms for compressing information and they have different effectiveness based on the content. Some of them remove just the redundant bits, so that no data will be lost, while others erase unnecessary bits, which results in worse quality once the data is uncompressed. The method requires plenty of processing time, therefore a web hosting server needs to be powerful enough to be able to compress and uncompress data in real time. An example how binary code may be compressed is by "remembering" that there're five consecutive 1s, for example, in contrast to storing all five 1s.

Data Compression in Shared Hosting

The compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud internet hosting platform is named LZ4. It can boost the performance of any Internet site hosted in a shared hosting account on our end since not only does it compress data more efficiently than algorithms used by various file systems, but also uncompresses data at speeds that are higher than the HDD reading speeds. This can be done 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. One more advantage of LZ4 is that it enables us to generate backup copies much quicker and on less disk space, so we can 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 could have removed by mistake.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting

In case you host your sites in a semi-dedicated hosting account with our company, you will be able to experience the advantages of LZ4 - the powerful compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system that's behind our advanced cloud hosting platform. What differentiates LZ4 from all the other algorithms out there is that it has a better compression ratio and it is much quicker, in particular when it comes to uncompressing website content. It does that even faster than uncompressed information can be read from a hard drive, so your sites will perform better. The higher speed is at the expense of using a lot of CPU processing time, which is not an issue for our platform since it consists of a large number of clusters working together. Besides the better performance, you'll have multiple daily backup copies at your disposal, so you can restore any deleted content with a couple of clicks. The backup copies are available for an entire month and we can afford to keep them as they need significantly less space compared to standard backups.