Data compression is the compacting of data by reducing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. Thus, the compressed info takes much less disk space than the initial one, so much more content can be stored using identical amount of space. You can find many different compression algorithms which work in different ways and with a lot of them only the redundant bits are erased, so once the information is uncompressed, there's no decrease in quality. Others remove unneeded bits, but uncompressing the data later on will lead to reduced quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content consumes a significant amount of system resources, especially CPU processing time, therefore each and every Internet hosting platform that uses compression in real time must have enough power to support that feature. An example how information 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 saving the actual code.

Data Compression in Shared Hosting

The compression algorithm used by the ZFS file system that runs on our cloud internet hosting platform is called LZ4. It can upgrade the performance of any Internet site hosted in a shared hosting account with us because not only does it compress data much better than algorithms used by other file systems, but also uncompresses data at speeds that are higher than the hard drive reading speeds. This is achieved by using a lot of CPU processing time, that is not a problem for our platform considering the fact that it uses clusters of powerful servers working together. A further advantage of LZ4 is that it enables us to generate backup copies at a higher speed and on reduced disk space, so we shall have several daily backups of your files and databases and their generation will not influence the performance of the servers. That way, we could always recover the content that you may have removed by mistake.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting

In case you host your Internet sites in a semi-dedicated hosting account from our firm, you can experience the advantages of LZ4 - the powerful compression algorithm employed by the ZFS file system that is 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 way quicker, in particular with regard to uncompressing web content. It does that even quicker than uncompressed data can be read from a hard disk drive, so your sites will perform better. The higher speed is at the expense of using plenty of CPU processing time, that is not a problem for our platform as it consists of a large number of clusters working together. Besides the improved performance, you will also have multiple daily backup copies at your disposal, so you will be able to restore any deleted content with several clicks. The backup copies are available for an entire month and we can afford to keep them as they take significantly less space than ordinary backups.