Data compression is the compacting of information by lowering the number of bits which are stored or transmitted. Consequently, the compressed data will require less disk space than the original one, so additional content can be stored on the same amount of space. There are various compression algorithms which work in different ways and with a number of them just the redundant bits are removed, so once the information is uncompressed, there is no decrease in quality. Others erase unneeded bits, but uncompressing the data following that will result in lower quality compared to the original. Compressing and uncompressing content requires a significant amount of system resources, in particular CPU processing time, so each and every hosting platform that employs compression in real time needs to have ample power to support that feature. An example how info can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" what number of sequential 1s or 0s there should be instead of keeping the whole code.

Data Compression in Hosting

The compression algorithm that we use on the cloud web hosting platform where your new hosting account will be created is known as LZ4 and it's used by the revolutionary ZFS file system which powers the system. The algorithm is better than the ones other file systems use because its compression ratio is much higher and it processes data considerably faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens even faster than data can be read from a hard drive. Because of this, LZ4 improves the performance of every site stored on a server that uses the algorithm. We use LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to produce several daily backups of the whole content of all accounts and keep them for 30 days. Not only do our 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 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 one of the best algorithms out there and definitely the best one when it comes to compressing and uncompressing web content, as its ratio is very high and it'll uncompress data at a faster rate than the same data can be read from a hard disk drive if it were uncompressed. In this way, using LZ4 will quicken any kind of Internet site that runs on a platform where the algorithm is present. This high performance requires lots of CPU processing time, that is provided by the numerous clusters working together as a part of our platform. In addition, LZ4 makes it possible for us to generate several backup copies of your content every day and have them for a month as they'll take a reduced amount of space than typical backups and will be created much quicker without loading the servers.