Solid State Drives

[pageBuzz]

I am considering updating my servers with new servers using solid state hard drives.

I am wondering if anyone has had any experience with them and if they are worth the price.

I am not concerned about space because we specialize in programming and not so much hard drive space. Our customers want speed and do not have huge product inventories. Performance is always an issue and the numbers on these drive is impressive and would seriously boost capacity over my 15k SCSI RAID arrays. Of course the price is a mouthful.

Does anyone have any feedback on brands, performance and reliability? I plan on making the change, I just want to do it when the product is right and not still in developent with my company being the guinea pig.

[empowering]

I am considering updating my servers with new servers using solid state hard drives.

I am wondering if anyone has had any experience with them and if they are worth the price.

I am not concerned about space because we specialize in programming and not so much hard drive space. Our customers want speed and do not have huge product inventories. Performance is always an issue and the numbers on these drive is impressive and would seriously boost capacity over my 15k SCSI RAID arrays. Of course the price is a mouthful.

Does anyone have any feedback on brands, performance and reliability? I plan on making the change, I just want to do it when the product is right and not still in developent with my company being the guinea pig.

For the hosting industry in general they are not ready for prime time. Too $$$ and not enough space. Even though they are solid state with the MTTF (Mean Time To Failure). I'm curious if one drive can match performance of some RAID setups with multiple spindles.

[Anantha]

SSD have been in development for a very long time, they are not a new technology, its just that the hosting industry is getting a whiff of it recently because after SATAs and SAS there has to be another technology to implement, enter SSD.

There are a few motherboards that support SSD but nothing like SATA SAS.

[SeeksZach]

SSD have been in development for a very long time, they are not a new technology, its just that the hosting industry is getting a whiff of it recently because after SATAs and SAS there has to be another technology to implement, enter SSD.

There are a few motherboards that support SSD but nothing like SATA SAS.

Indeed this is the next stage. I have seen several datacenters updating their product line ups to begin including the SSD as options for customers. If I remember correctly the credit card companies use these?

[iHosturDomain]

I think they do. Its pretty much the next step.

[LION LOAD]

Its too early to be using them. They are not cost effective at this time.

[dbkooper]

I agree, a bit too early. Wait a year or so while the technology matures. If you must go with it, check out liquidweb dedicated hosting. I believe they offer SSHDs now

[Tinkletinkle]

Its too early to be using them. They are not cost effective at this time.
When do you think they will become cost-effective?

[blueroomhosting]

The prices I have seen make SSDs about 80 times more expensive than HDDs for the same capacity. However, it is hard to say how much more expensive they are for the same performance (depends on usage) and running enough HDDs to match the performance will cost more electricity.

SSDs are great in VPS hosts as multiple user's request will cause a lot of seeking on HDDs. If you absolutely need the performance then they can be worth it, but for most people they are just too expensive for the capacity.

For some amazing performance you might want to search for the fusion-io ioDrive, a PCI Express card which can read and write at over 600MB/s (even with random access).

Jim

[nayr14]

When do you think they will become cost-effective?

My guess is around 2 years from now..

Does anyone know he access time comparison between SSD and SATA drives (7200 RPM)? Would it work well as SWAP (or fast/as fast as memory?)

[dj180]

Why do you need them?

If you need to have a bootable backup drive, then consider a USB flash card.

Jennifer

[PP317]

They're too expensive for hosting use and have only small space.

[ldcdc]

They're too expensive for hosting use and have only small space. Expensive should not be an issue. Servers are supposed to use high grade hardware that isn't cheap.

Space is an issue only for budget hosts. A blog or a forum should not need big amounts of space, but could make good use of any speed improvements.

[nayr14]

Expensive should not be an issue. Servers are supposed to use high grade hardware that isn't cheap.

Space is an issue only for budget hosts. A blog or a forum should not need big amounts of space, but could make good use of any speed improvements.

Expense is always an issue... and saying it's not is illogical. Earning and expenses = business.

With a QUALITY 32GB SSD costing ~$400USD and 64GB ~$700 (saying cPanel/OS took up 6GB.. for the 32GB its +$7USD per GB, compared to SATA drives which space can be as cheap as a few pennies on the dollar a GB. I would assume a quality host wouldn't oversell, evidently leaving a large portion unused (un-ignorable waste of space/gb). I also believe they are less reliable (territory hosting companies should enter very cautiously) and I'm sure as time passes the technology will become more reliable and more affordable. Wait a year for the quirks to be worked out of SSD, jump in before the rest, save money/avoid problems, be a quality host at the same time :p:

I strongly disagree with your comment about "space only being an issue for budget hosts"... Although somewhat true for extreme budget hosts, just because a host charges high prices with quality hardware/network does not mean you should expect only database-based software to be hosted.

All this being said... I do believe this technology could be ideal for a local dedicated MySQL server, in a type of RAID array, of course. ;)

[ldcdc]

Maybe I was a bit "definitive" in my reply, but that was a reaction to the broad statement that was made above me. Don't take it out of context. Take it with the quote I provided. It all depends on the type of hosting service you're going to offer, the market that you're going for. That was my point.

[Shallowhosts]

Mmm i would wait till there more cost effective.

[BattleHosting]

The problem with solid state is that their price is very expensive at the minute. However it means you never have to defrag,

I am not sure as I have never used one, but im not sure if they actually get hot? I belive because its solid state, no moving parts, it shouold be cold...? Which is always a bonus inside a rack server.

[markcausa]

Yeah, I've read they maintain "no measurable heat."

[pageBuzz]

Expense is always an issue... and saying it's not is illogical. Earning and expenses = business.

With a QUALITY 32GB SSD costing ~$400USD and 64GB ~$700 (saying cPanel/OS took up 6GB.. for the 32GB its +$7USD per GB, compared to SATA drives which space can be as cheap as a few pennies on the dollar a GB. I would assume a quality host wouldn't oversell, evidently leaving a large portion unused (un-ignorable waste of space/gb). I also believe they are less reliable (territory hosting companies should enter very cautiously) and I'm sure as time passes the technology will become more reliable and more affordable. Wait a year for the quirks to be worked out of SSD, jump in before the rest, save money/avoid problems, be a quality host at the same time :p:

I strongly disagree with your comment about "space only being an issue for budget hosts"... Although somewhat true for extreme budget hosts, just because a host charges high prices with quality hardware/network does not mean you should expect only database-based software to be hosted.

All this being said... I do believe this technology could be ideal for a local dedicated MySQL server, in a type of RAID array, of course. ;)


Where can I get a 32G SSD for $400? That is pretty close to the cost of a decent 15K RPM SCSI drive. I have not seen anything that cheap. If I had, I would have a box of them and start replacing my older scsi drives.

If you can point me in a direction I would like to look into them. I am due for some drive replacements and that might be a good way to go.

[Fortbox]

When do you think they will become cost-effective?

If early trends are a good indication, then it'll be at least another 18-24 months out before they become standard, and less 'trendy' (costly).

[VisualVPS]

The problem with solid state is that their price is very expensive at the minute. However it means you never have to defrag,

I am not sure as I have never used one, but im not sure if they actually get hot? I belive because its solid state, no moving parts, it shouold be cold...? Which is always a bonus inside a rack server.


I don't think its "cold" but i would think that it doesn't get anywhere close to being as hot as any standard hard drive.

[janding]

I work for a data warehousing company and we haven't even considered using SS drives yet. Until they become more cost effective, they will not be used mainstream.