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  1. #1
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    SSD vs Spinning drive for hosting

    I'm having a bit problem with drive performance lately as i'm just using wdc black as raid 0, so i'm thinking about minimizing this i/o bottleneck by upgrading the drive to 10K velociraptor or perhaps SSD drives.

    I'm curious though how good SSD drives perform in hosting environment? How does it perform and does the lifespan reliable enough compared to spinning drives?

    i'm looking for other feedback, especially if you guys have tried out SSD Drives in hosting environment

  2. #2
    velociraptors are terribly unreliable, and aren't really much cheaper than an equivalent 10k SAS drive, so I wouldn't recommend that in any situation.

    as to performance issues on raid 0, I'm not terribly surprised. The default stripe size is usually so small that you won't see much improvement vs a single drive alone. If you can increase your stripe size to 2MB and your linux readahead to 512K, that will provide much better performance than the typical settings you might see of a 64k stripe and a 128k readahead.

    As to SSD, a good SSD will provide at least 10x (likely 20x or 40x) the i/o/s than you'd see on your raid 0 set, so if you don't need tons of space and can afford them, there's nothing better than going with a good SSD.

    Can't go wrong with the intel SSD. Many people will say you have to use the X-25E or else you'll have problems. I personally think the X-25M is a good option in a number of use cases. But either way, you're going to get a heck of a lot more i/o/s per $ on those than with anything else you could buy.
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  3. #3
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    I highly recommend SSDs. We roll out at least one SSD with each server we send out (in addition to SATA spinning drives). We use the SSDs for web file storage and MySQL databases.

    Can't beat SSDs speed wise. Even somewhat slow SSDs still are quite fast.

    128GB SSDs have a good price point if you take time to look around.

    I *like* Samsung's SSD's and recommend them in addition to the Intel products.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by pubcrawler View Post
    I *like* Samsung's SSD's and recommend them in addition to the Intel products.
    Have the samsungs improved recently? I remember them benchmarking as much worse in speed than most others. They were fast enough to not be total trash (like ones using an older jmicron controller), but not really fast enough to be impressed with. The new sandforce controller seems to be a serious competitor to the intel though.
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  5. #5
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    FunkyWizard,

    Do you have any experience with Crucial C300 in server enviroments?
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  6. #6
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    The Samsung 470 line is what you want --- at this point.

    250MB/s reads and 220MB/s writes.

    Tons of OEM versions and other odd perhaps older drives out there though. Some are 470 versions, some are who knows what.

    Many other manufacturers are just selling Samsung's drives rebadged. There are a number of good drives at different prices as a result, but I prefer to stick with the manufacturer.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven View Post
    FunkyWizard,

    Do you have any experience with Crucial C300 in server enviroments?
    Not directly. I think someone I know was using those and they worked basically as expected.

    For a rundown on the i/o/s and mb/s you can expect from various SSD's, you should check out tomshardware.com as they have charts outlining the performance of all of them. The database i/o pattern is probably the best one to look at, since it's the i/o pattern that makes the most sense to use an SSD for vs a hard drive. If you just need more sequential data rates, a regular hard drive is fine. SSD's really shine in random i/o. The sandforce and intel drives are usually the best there.
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  8. #8
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    The Crucial C300's look great from specs and some tests out there. SATA 3 and speedy -- given you have such controller.

    Some folks love the Marvell controller on that drive while others say it's junk. I've had good experiences with Marvell's products, but never considered anything they make high performance.

    Unsure if you are going to get endorsements of any SSD's in hosting world other than the Intel's.

    Crucial tends to make good products and stand behind them.

    SSD's should work fine for you --- any SSD. Try to keep the SSD from filling up --- limited write cycles (although much higher than use to be). As the SSDs fill up performance does get impacted also. So dual purpose.

  9. #9
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    I would recommend staying with Intel controllers right now for servers and leaving the other controllers like Sandforce for consumer machines.

  10. #10
    I am really happy to see this discussion. About time I was also wondering about the C300 just for general purposes. I would for sure give one a try in my desktop, but no one has ever asked would it be good for a server. Till now, Steven I am guessing that my next VPS will have a SSD. Hear that ServInt? Cuz I want to stay with my excellent host!

    I have a Corsair NOVA 128GB on my desktop and I will never go back to a spinner. Tried to do that, and almost went completely crazy.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Orien View Post
    I would recommend staying with Intel controllers right now for servers and leaving the other controllers like Sandforce for consumer machines.
    Interestingly, Intel's latest SSD (510 series) uses a Marvell controller.
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  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by bqinternet View Post
    Interestingly, Intel's latest SSD (510 series) uses a Marvell controller.
    My personal opinion of that is Intel's just buying itself time to catch up in terms of speeds using the 510 series based on Marvell controllers.

    The actual successor to their X25-M/E is the 320 series (with their own controller) coming in a month or two.

  13. #13
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    Well Marvell is officially freaking everywhere. Bet everyone on here has Marvell components in machines you own. Quite a stealth company. I *like* Marvell's products, good low price point and good performance relative to price.

    Most known product until now has been the SheevaPlug/PogoPlug/whatever plug computers from them.

    I am using a SATA 3 controller with their chipset with a SATA 2 SSD and haven't been impressed with performance. Have yet to track down the issue - bound to be software. Not real interested in mucking with that either since it's a live production machine.

    I say to everyone give SSD's a chance if your budget allows such borderline luxuries. Performance and reliability has really gone up in the past 18 months with SSDs. We pack at least one SSD inside everything we ship --- in addition to the spinning drives.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    velociraptors are terribly unreliable, and aren't really much cheaper than an equivalent 10k SAS drive, so I wouldn't recommend that in any situation.
    May i know what problems have you encountered with velo drives?

    Quote Originally Posted by pubcrawler View Post
    I highly recommend SSDs. We roll out at least one SSD with each server we send out (in addition to SATA spinning drives). We use the SSDs for web file storage and MySQL databases.

    Can't beat SSDs speed wise. Even somewhat slow SSDs still are quite fast.

    128GB SSDs have a good price point if you take time to look around.

    I *like* Samsung's SSD's and recommend them in addition to the Intel products.
    interesting, how long have you been using SSD in your server though? I don't have any samsung SSD in my country, only from other memory maker like corsair/patriot/OCZ. Intel SSD is also hard to find though

    Quote Originally Posted by Orien View Post
    My personal opinion of that is Intel's just buying itself time to catch up in terms of speeds using the 510 series based on Marvell controllers.

    The actual successor to their X25-M/E is the 320 series (with their own controller) coming in a month or two.
    Do you know what might good for servers is it slc or mlc?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by pubcrawler View Post
    Well Marvell is officially freaking everywhere. Bet everyone on here has Marvell components in machines you own. Quite a stealth company. I *like* Marvell's products, good low price point and good performance relative to price.

    Most known product until now has been the SheevaPlug/PogoPlug/whatever plug computers from them.

    I am using a SATA 3 controller with their chipset with a SATA 2 SSD and haven't been impressed with performance. Have yet to track down the issue - bound to be software. Not real interested in mucking with that either since it's a live production machine.

    I say to everyone give SSD's a chance if your budget allows such borderline luxuries. Performance and reliability has really gone up in the past 18 months with SSDs. We pack at least one SSD inside everything we ship --- in addition to the spinning drives.
    Jmicron is everywhere, but their SSD controllers suck. I bet you their SATA controllers are in your PC's motherboard, and those work fine. What's your point? Not every product a company makes is a winner, you have to look at each one individually. The Marvell controller might be good, might not, but I'm not going to just assume it's good because Marvell makes "lots of computer stuff".
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by yohanesw View Post
    May i know what problems have you encountered with velo drives?
    I've had a good 50% failure rate on regular raptor drives. From people I've talked to who've bought the velo's, they've seen similarly dismal failure rates.
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  17. #17
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    I've mentioned in another thread that velociraptors kinda suck.

    If you need speed, get a ZFS box. You can raid-z a bunch of drives and then add in SSD's for cache. A whole raid of SSD's is not real smart because the cost benefit isn't there for most people.
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by appliedops View Post
    I've mentioned in another thread that velociraptors kinda suck.

    If you need speed, get a ZFS box. You can raid-z a bunch of drives and then add in SSD's for cache. A whole raid of SSD's is not real smart because the cost benefit isn't there for most people.
    i'm not planning to have that kind of big RAID on my hosting server, beside, the case wouldn't fit all the drives

    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    I've had a good 50% failure rate on regular raptor drives. From people I've talked to who've bought the velo's, they've seen similarly dismal failure rates.
    i suppose that failures is the 300GB type? i've seen article in wikipedia that the 300GB version have bug that can cause data dropping after 49.71 days (yes)

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_Raptor

  19. #19
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    @funkywizard:

    Actually surprised that Marvell is getting so much adoption on their SATA3 controllers and related SSD components. Like I said, Marvell never has been known for speed. Something must be right though that Intel is using them for new SSDs.

    @yohanesw

    I have been deploying SSDs for a roughly a year now. Would *love* to only deploy SSDs.

    You probably have Samsung drives in your country being sold under other manufacturers. I have such a drive rebadged by a European company.

    SLC memory is preferred still and viewed as higher end and more reliable. But, MLC is quite competitive and lower priced. Durability/longevity of either drive should exceed the life span of the server it's going in (by my calculations at least 7 years for a MLC under pretty heavy 24/7 usage). In theory and my hunch is your SSD can and will last much longer. Even when write cycles are gone from a SSD the data should still be usable in read only mode (for what that is worth).

  20. #20
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    SLC-SSDs are really fast and with DB usage are very fast. I know of two very popular tech forums that use those in thier servers and they are fast. They normally have over 2,000 active registered users at any time and at least 5,000 guests. They are at Softlayer's DC. The forums are fast. Does this forum run on one?
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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    velociraptors are terribly unreliable, and aren't really much cheaper than an equivalent 10k SAS drive, so I wouldn't recommend that in any situation.
    I think you're confusing Raptor with Velociraptor. The old 3.5" Raptor drives were indeed unreliable. The new 2.5" Velociraptors are much, much better -- at least in my experience having spun up quite a few.
    Last edited by Microlinux; 03-02-2011 at 03:53 PM.

  22. #22
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    Power Consumption?

    I've been configuring some Dell R210s using their power calculator:

    http://solutions.dell.com/DellStarOnline/DCCP.aspx

    Using SSDs as the boot drives consumes drastically less power than a spinning drive. Enough to put the server well below 0.5 amps and that can make for quite a saving if you are doing colo.

    Although Dell are charging a fair wack:

    100GB, Solid State Disk SATA, 2.5-in Hard Drive (Cabled) [£1,410.00 or £66/month-1]

    Am I right in thinking that a SSD with a SATA interface can be used as a straight replacement for an existing SATA drive?

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Kedstar View Post
    I've been configuring some Dell R210s using their power calculator:

    http://solutions.dell.com/DellStarOnline/DCCP.aspx

    Using SSDs as the boot drives consumes drastically less power than a spinning drive. Enough to put the server well below 0.5 amps and that can make for quite a saving if you are doing colo.

    Although Dell are charging a fair wack:

    100GB, Solid State Disk SATA, 2.5-in Hard Drive (Cabled) [£1,410.00 or £66/month-1]

    Am I right in thinking that a SSD with a SATA interface can be used as a straight replacement for an existing SATA drive?
    yeah you can probably save 10w (0.1a) going from a spinning disk to a typical ssd under idle load. yes, you can just put in an ssd instead of a sata disk. most SSD's are 2.5" and are not sensitive to cooling needs or vibration / shock nearly so much as hard drives so that can allow more flexibility in how you mount them compared to 3.5" hard drives.
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  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kedstar View Post
    I've been configuring some Dell R210s using their power calculator:

    http://solutions.dell.com/DellStarOnline/DCCP.aspx

    Using SSDs as the boot drives consumes drastically less power than a spinning drive. Enough to put the server well below 0.5 amps and that can make for quite a saving if you are doing colo.

    Although Dell are charging a fair wack:

    100GB, Solid State Disk SATA, 2.5-in Hard Drive (Cabled) [£1,410.00 or £66/month-1]

    Am I right in thinking that a SSD with a SATA interface can be used as a straight replacement for an existing SATA drive?
    Unsure what brand Dell is selling there, but those prices are insane.

    SSDs will work fine as a boot drive or as a data drive, as long as you can deal with the limited disk space most offer (compared to spinning drives).

    Most current SSDs are under 1 watt power draw. You will have a problem even noticing the power draw by a SSD.

    I mainly use our SSDs in servers for data storage. Unsure about the perceived benefits of an SSD as a boot drive on a remote server.

  25. #25
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    hm, for those using ssd in their hosting server, does the write limit cycle even bother you for long term usage? as we know, hosting servers have so many read/write process compared to normal single user usage.

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