Data compression is the compacting of info by lowering the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. This way, the compressed data requires much less disk space than the initial one, so more content could be stored on the same amount of space. You can find various compression algorithms that function in different ways and with a lot of them only the redundant bits are deleted, so once the info is uncompressed, there is no decrease in quality. Others delete unneeded bits, but uncompressing the data afterwards will lead to reduced quality compared to the original. Compressing and uncompressing content consumes a large amount of system resources, particularly CPU processing time, therefore every Internet hosting platform that uses compression in real time must have adequate power to support that feature. An example how information can be compressed is to replace a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" the number of sequential 1s or 0s there should be instead of saving the whole code.
Data Compression in Cloud Website Hosting
The compression algorithm that we use on the cloud hosting platform where your new cloud website hosting account shall be created is named LZ4 and it's applied by the state-of-the-art ZFS file system that powers the system. The algorithm is far better than the ones other file systems use since 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 at a faster rate than info can be read from a hard drive. Because of this, LZ4 improves the performance of each and every website stored on a server that uses this algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make a couple of daily backup copies of the full content of all accounts and keep them for a month. Not only do our backups take less space, but their generation won't slow the servers down like it can often happen with various other file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting
Your semi-dedicated hosting account shall be created on a cloud platform that is run on the state-of-the-art ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm named LZ4, that is much better than alternative algorithms in terms of compression ratio and speed. The gain is visible particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much faster than other algorithms, but it is also quicker in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard disk. This is why sites running on a platform that uses LZ4 compression perform better because the algorithm is most efficient when it processes compressible data i.e. site content. Another advantage of using LZ4 is that the backups of the semi-dedicated accounts which we keep take much less space and are generated a lot quicker, which enables us to have several daily backups of all your files and databases.