Data compression is the compacting of info by decreasing the number of bits which are stored or transmitted. As a result, the compressed info will require less disk space than the initial one, so much more content could be stored on the same amount of space. There are different compression algorithms that work in different ways and with several of them only the redundant bits are deleted, which means that once the information is uncompressed, there's no decrease in quality. Others remove unnecessary bits, but uncompressing the data following that will result in reduced quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content takes a significant amount of system resources, particularly CPU processing time, therefore every Internet hosting platform that uses compression in real time should have adequate power to support this feature. An example how info 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 storing the whole code.

Data Compression in Hosting

The compression algorithm which we work with on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new hosting account shall be created is named LZ4 and it is used by the leading-edge ZFS file system which powers the platform. The algorithm is more advanced than the ones other file systems employ as 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 more quickly than information can be read from a hard disk drive. Consequently, LZ4 improves the performance of every website located on a server which uses the algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make multiple daily backups of the entire content of all accounts and store them for 30 days. Not only do the backup copies take less space, but in addition their generation doesn't slow the servers down like it often happens with other file systems.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers

Your semi-dedicated server account shall be created on a cloud platform which is run on the cutting-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm called LZ4, which is significantly better than other algorithms with regard to compression ratio and speed. The gain is apparent especially when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much faster than other algorithms, but it is also faster in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard drive. That's why sites running on a platform that employs LZ4 compression perform better as the algorithm is most effective when it processes compressible data i.e. website content. An additional advantage of using LZ4 is that the backups of the semi-dedicated accounts that we keep require much less space and they are generated a lot quicker, which allows us to store several daily backups of all your files and databases.