Data compression is the compacting of information by decreasing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. In this way, the compressed information requires less disk space than the original one, so more content might be stored on the same amount of space. There're various compression algorithms which work in different ways and with a number of them only the redundant bits are erased, so once the info is uncompressed, there is no decrease in quality. Others delete excessive bits, but uncompressing the data later on will result in reduced quality compared to the original. Compressing and uncompressing content consumes a large amount of system resources, especially CPU processing time, therefore every hosting platform that employs compression in real time must have sufficient power to support that feature. An example how info can be compressed is to replace a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" how many sequential 1s or 0s there should be instead of keeping the entire code.

Data Compression in Hosting

The compression algorithm which we use on the cloud web hosting platform where your new hosting account will be created is known as LZ4 and it is used by the advanced ZFS file system which powers the system. The algorithm is a lot better than the ones other file systems work with because 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 quicker than information can be read from a hard drive. For that reason, LZ4 improves the performance of any website located on a server which uses this algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio let us generate multiple daily backup copies of the full content of all accounts and store them for 30 days. Not only do these backup copies take less space, but also their generation won't slow the servers down like it often happens with many other file systems.

Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Servers

The ZFS file system that runs on the cloud platform where your semi-dedicated server account will be created uses a powerful compression algorithm called LZ4. It's one of the best algorithms out there and certainly the most efficient one when it comes to compressing and uncompressing web content, as its ratio is very high and it will uncompress data at a faster rate than the same data can be read from a hard drive if it were uncompressed. This way, using LZ4 will speed up any kind of Internet site that runs on a platform where the algorithm is enabled. This high performance requires plenty of CPU processing time, which is provided by the multitude of clusters working together as a part of our platform. What's more, LZ4 allows us to generate several backups of your content every day and have them for one month as they'll take a reduced amount of space than regular backups and will be generated much more quickly without loading the servers.