Data compression is the compacting of info by decreasing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. As a result, the compressed data will require considerably less disk space than the original one, so a lot more content can be stored using the same amount of space. There are various compression algorithms which work in different ways and with some of them only the redundant bits are deleted, so once the data is uncompressed, there is no loss of quality. Others delete excessive bits, but uncompressing the data later on will lead to lower quality in comparison with the original. Compressing and uncompressing content requires a large amount of system resources, particularly CPU processing time, so every hosting platform which employs compression in real time needs to have adequate power to support this feature. An example how information can be compressed is to replace a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" how many consecutive 1s or 0s there should be instead of saving the entire code.

Data Compression in Website Hosting

The compression algorithm employed by the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud hosting platform is called LZ4. It can boost the performance of any website hosted in a website hosting account on our end because not only does it compress data significantly better than algorithms used by various other file systems, but it also uncompresses data at speeds which are higher than the hard disk drive reading speeds. This can be done by using a lot of CPU processing time, which is not a problem for our platform because it uses clusters of powerful servers working together. A further advantage of LZ4 is that it allows us to generate backups much quicker and on reduced disk space, so we shall have several daily backups of your databases and files and their generation won't affect the performance of the servers. In this way, we could always recover any kind of content that you may have removed by mistake.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting

In case you host your websites in a semi-dedicated hosting account with our company, you'll be able to 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 other algorithms out there is that it has a better compression ratio and it is much quicker, in particular with regard to uncompressing web content. It does that even quicker than uncompressed data can be read from a hard drive, so your sites will perform better. The higher speed is at the expense of using a great deal of CPU processing time, that's not a problem for our platform since it consists of multiple clusters working together. In addition to the improved performance, you'll also have multiple daily backup copies at your disposal, so you'll be able to recover any deleted content with just a few clicks. The backup copies are available for an entire month and we can afford to store them since they need significantly less space compared to standard backups.