The term data compression means lowering the number of bits of info that should be stored or transmitted. This can be done with or without the loss of data, so what will be removed in the course of the compression can be either redundant data or unneeded one. When the data is uncompressed subsequently, in the first case the data and its quality shall be the same, while in the second case the quality shall be worse. You will find different compression algorithms that are better for different kind of info. Compressing and uncompressing data generally takes lots of processing time, therefore the server performing the action should have sufficient resources to be able to process the info quick enough. A simple example how information can be compressed is to store just how many consecutive positions should have 1 and just how many should have 0 in the binary code rather than storing the particular 1s and 0s.
Data Compression in Shared Website Hosting
The compression algorithm which we work with on the cloud internet hosting platform where your new shared website hosting account shall be created is named LZ4 and it's applied by the leading-edge ZFS file system that powers the platform. The algorithm is more advanced than the ones other file systems use because its compression ratio is a lot higher and it processes data considerably faster. The speed is most noticeable when content is being uncompressed since this happens even faster than info can be read from a hard drive. Consequently, LZ4 improves the performance of each Internet site hosted on a server which uses the algorithm. We take advantage of LZ4 in an additional way - its speed and compression ratio allow us to make a couple of daily backup copies of the entire content of all accounts and store them for one month. Not only do the backup copies take less space, but also their generation won't slow the servers down like it can often happen with other file systems.
Data Compression in Semi-dedicated Hosting
Your semi-dedicated hosting account will be created on a cloud platform that runs using the cutting-edge ZFS file system. The aforementioned uses a compression algorithm called LZ4, that's a lot better than various other algorithms regarding compression ratio and speed. The gain is significant especially when data is being uncompressed and not only is LZ4 much faster than other algorithms, but it is also faster in uncompressing data than a system is in reading from a HDD. This is the reason why Internet sites running on a platform which uses LZ4 compression perform better because the algorithm is most efficient when it processes compressible data i.e. website content. One more advantage of using LZ4 is that the backup copies of the semi-dedicated accounts which we keep take significantly less space and they're generated faster, which enables us to store multiple daily backups of all your files and databases.