Data compression is the compacting of data by decreasing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. This way, the compressed data will need substantially less disk space than the initial one, so additional content might be stored on the same amount of space. There are many different compression algorithms that work in different ways and with several of them only the redundant bits are deleted, which means that once the data is uncompressed, there's no decrease in quality. Others delete excessive bits, but uncompressing the data later on will lead to reduced quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content consumes a large amount of system resources, in particular CPU processing time, therefore each and every web hosting platform which employs compression in real time should have adequate power to support this attribute. An example how info can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" how many sequential 1s or 0s there should be instead of storing the actual code.
Data Compression in Shared Website Hosting
The compression algorithm employed by the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud hosting platform is named LZ4. It can boost the performance of any Internet site hosted in a shared website hosting account on our end as not only does it compress data more efficiently than algorithms used by alternative file systems, but it also uncompresses data at speeds that are higher than the hard disk reading speeds. This is achieved by using a lot of CPU processing time, which is not a problem for our platform due to the fact that it uses clusters of powerful servers working together. One more advantage of LZ4 is that it allows us to create backup copies quicker and on reduced disk space, so we can have multiple daily backups of your files and databases and their generation won't influence the performance of the servers. This way, we could always restore all of the content that you could have erased by accident.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting
In case you host your Internet sites in a semi-dedicated hosting account with our firm, you can experience the advantages of LZ4 - the powerful compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system that 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, especially with regard to uncompressing web content. It does that even faster than uncompressed data can be read from a hard disk drive, so your Internet sites will perform faster. The higher speed comes at the expense of using lots of CPU processing time, that's not a problem for our platform because it consists of a lot of clusters working together. In addition to the superior performance, you'll have multiple daily backups at your disposal, so you will be able to restore any deleted content with a few clicks. The backups are available for a whole month and we can afford to keep them because they need considerably less space compared to traditional backups.