A solid-state drive (SSD) boosts the performance of any app running on it compared with a classic hard-disk drive (HDD). The reason is that an SSD works by using many different interconnected flash memory units, so there're no physical parts to move. In contrast, a hard disk works by using spinning disks and each reading or writing process causes the disks to move, so the speed of an HDD is fixed. As the prices of the two kinds of drives also differ, many computer systems and web servers are equipped with an SSD for the OS and various applications, and a hard disk for data storage, thus balancing cost and overall performance. A web hosting provider may also use an SSD for caching purposes, thus files that are used frequently will be located on this type of a drive for accomplishing better loading speeds and for reducing the reading/writing processes on the hard disks.

SSD with Data Caching in Shared Website Hosting

The cloud platform where we make shared website hosting accounts uses exclusively SSD drives, so your web applications and static sites will open very quickly. The SSDs are used for files, e-mail addresses and databases, so regardless if you open a page or check for new e-mails with webmail, the content will load quickly. To ensure even higher speeds, we also use numerous dedicated SSDs which function only as cache. All of the content which generates lots of traffic is copied on them automatically and is later on read from them and not from the main storage drives. Needless to say, that content is replaced dynamically for much better efficiency. What we achieve this way in addition to the improved speed is lowered overall load, thus lower probability of hardware failures, and longer lifespan of the primary drives, which is one more level of protection for any information that you upload to your account.