Data compression is the compacting of data by reducing the number of bits that are stored or transmitted. Because of this, the compressed info requires considerably less disk space than the initial one, so much more content could be stored on the same amount of space. There're many different compression algorithms that work in different ways and with several of them just the redundant bits are deleted, so once the info is uncompressed, there's no loss of quality. Others erase unneeded bits, but uncompressing the data afterwards will result in reduced quality compared to the original. Compressing and uncompressing content takes a huge amount of system resources, in particular CPU processing time, so every Internet hosting platform which employs compression in real time should have sufficient power to support this feature. An example how information can be compressed is to substitute a binary code such as 111111 with 6x1 i.e. "remembering" how many consecutive 1s or 0s there should be instead of keeping the actual code.

Data Compression in Website Hosting

The compression algorithm that we work with on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new website hosting account will be created is called LZ4 and it is used by the leading-edge ZFS file system that powers the system. The algorithm is superior to the ones other file systems employ because its compression ratio is a lot higher and it processes data a lot faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens at a faster rate than data can be read from a hard disk drive. Because of this, LZ4 improves the performance of any site stored on a server that uses the algorithm. We use LZ4 in one more way - its speed and compression ratio let us produce a couple of daily backup copies of the entire content of all accounts and keep them for one month. Not only do these backup copies 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 will be created on a cloud platform that runs on the cutting-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm called LZ4, which is far better than alternative algorithms when it comes to compression ratio and speed. The gain is noticeable 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 drive. Because of this websites running on a platform which employs LZ4 compression perform better as the algorithm is most effective when it processes compressible data i.e. website content. Another advantage of using LZ4 is that the backups of the semi-dedicated accounts that we keep require a lot less space and are generated faster, which enables us to have several daily backups of your files and databases.