The term data compression means lowering the number of bits of information that has to be stored or transmitted. This can be done with or without the loss of data, which means that what will be deleted at the time of the compression will be either redundant data or unnecessary one. When the data is uncompressed subsequently, in the first case the information and the quality will be identical, while in the second case the quality will be worse. There are various compression algorithms which are more effective for different type of info. Compressing and uncompressing data generally takes plenty of processing time, therefore the server performing the action should have ample resources in order to be able to process the data quick enough. A simple example how information can be compressed is to store just how many consecutive positions should have 1 and how many should have 0 within the binary code rather than storing the particular 1s and 0s.

Data Compression in Shared Hosting

The compression algorithm which we work with on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new shared hosting account shall be created is named LZ4 and it's used by the exceptional ZFS file system that powers the system. The algorithm is greater than the ones other file systems work with since its compression ratio is a lot higher and it processes data a lot quicker. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens even faster than data can be read from a hard drive. Consequently, LZ4 improves the performance of each and every site stored on a server which uses this particular algorithm. We use LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio make it possible for us to make multiple daily backups of the whole content of all accounts and keep them for thirty days. Not only do the backups take less space, but their generation will not 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 runs using the leading-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm named LZ4, that is far better than other algorithms when it comes to compression ratio and speed. The gain is visible particularly when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much quicker than other algorithms, but it is also quicker in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a hard disk. That's why Internet sites running on a platform which uses LZ4 compression perform faster since the algorithm is most efficient when it processes compressible data i.e. web content. Another advantage of using LZ4 is that the backup copies of the semi-dedicated accounts which we keep require much less space and are generated a lot quicker, which enables us to have a couple of daily backups of all your files and databases.