Data compression is the compacting of info by decreasing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. Thus, the compressed data will require much less disk space than the initial one, so a lot more content might be stored using the same amount of space. You will find different compression algorithms that function in different ways and with a lot of them only the redundant bits are erased, so once the information is uncompressed, there is no decrease in quality. Others delete unnecessary bits, but uncompressing the data following that will lead to reduced quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content needs a significant amount of system resources, and in particular CPU processing time, so each and every hosting platform which uses compression in real time needs to have enough power to support this feature. An example how data can be compressed is to replace 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 Shared Web Hosting
The compression algorithm which we employ on the cloud hosting platform where your new shared web hosting account will be created is known as LZ4 and it is applied by the revolutionary ZFS file system which powers the system. The algorithm is greater than the ones other file systems use as its compression ratio is a lot higher and it processes data considerably faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens even faster than info can be read from a hard drive. Because of this, LZ4 improves the performance of each and every Internet site hosted on a server that uses the algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to generate multiple daily backup copies of the full content of all accounts and keep them for a month. Not only do these backups take less space, but also their generation doesn't slow the servers down like it often happens with alternative file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The ZFS file system that runs on the cloud platform where your semi-dedicated hosting account will be created uses a powerful compression algorithm called LZ4. It is among the best algorithms out there and certainly the best one when it comes to compressing and uncompressing website content, as its ratio is very high and it can uncompress data quicker than the same data can be read from a hard disk drive if it were uncompressed. Thus, using LZ4 will boost any Internet site that runs on a platform where this algorithm is enabled. The high performance requires lots of CPU processing time, that is provided by the multitude of clusters working together as part of our platform. Furthermore, LZ4 enables us to generate several backups of your content every day and save them for one month as they'll take much less space than regular backups and will be created much faster without loading the servers.