SSDs for the IT Manager
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SSD
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Business Computing
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Servers
Last response: in Business Computing
Hey there, all!
I don't have to tell you that we've got a metric ton of resources on SSDs here at Tom's. From the Useful SSD Articles sticky compendium thread to the dozens of tutorials we've got stowed away in the Storage category, we've got the subject covered as consumer PCs go. One spot we're coming up short a bit in is some SSD wisdom from the IT pros making everyday decisions at work that affect the performance of the systems they manage.
When you've got a few dozen to a few hundred and more computers and servers to tend to, it's good to know what the best practices are as it relates to storage options. So here's a few items for discussion, and we'd like to get your input for a possible future piece later on.
• At work, you are probably mixing SSDs and Hard Drives together as servers and desktops go. What's your ratio of SSD to HD for both servers and desktops? And why?
• When, for you as an IT guy, do SSDs make sense for workstations and business PCs? Do you leave the SSD out of the system for the front desk receptionist, and go total SSD for the render programmer down the hall? Or are you sticking to uniform system setups across the board?
• How are you measuring performance for your Storage setup?
We want to hear from you and your thoughts on any or all of the above questions. More than just input, we want to know how you arrived at the decision you did in the above. Due to this being an important discussion that could impact a lot of your fellow experts and users, any contributors to the discussion might be highlighted in a feature piece later on (particularly if the comment is a good/useful one).
Thanks all! And feel free to toss in your two cents below.
-JP
I don't have to tell you that we've got a metric ton of resources on SSDs here at Tom's. From the Useful SSD Articles sticky compendium thread to the dozens of tutorials we've got stowed away in the Storage category, we've got the subject covered as consumer PCs go. One spot we're coming up short a bit in is some SSD wisdom from the IT pros making everyday decisions at work that affect the performance of the systems they manage.
When you've got a few dozen to a few hundred and more computers and servers to tend to, it's good to know what the best practices are as it relates to storage options. So here's a few items for discussion, and we'd like to get your input for a possible future piece later on.
• At work, you are probably mixing SSDs and Hard Drives together as servers and desktops go. What's your ratio of SSD to HD for both servers and desktops? And why?
• When, for you as an IT guy, do SSDs make sense for workstations and business PCs? Do you leave the SSD out of the system for the front desk receptionist, and go total SSD for the render programmer down the hall? Or are you sticking to uniform system setups across the board?
• How are you measuring performance for your Storage setup?
We want to hear from you and your thoughts on any or all of the above questions. More than just input, we want to know how you arrived at the decision you did in the above. Due to this being an important discussion that could impact a lot of your fellow experts and users, any contributors to the discussion might be highlighted in a feature piece later on (particularly if the comment is a good/useful one).
Thanks all! And feel free to toss in your two cents below.
-JP
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Reply to jpishgar
Hey, Joe. Where to start on that? The thing that jumps out at me is the mixing of SSDs and HDDs. I don't think ANYBODY is going wall-to-wall SSD. And 80-90% of the time, HDD is probably fast enough, especially if you're planting 10K or 15K drives. But those units get spendy, too. So I'm really intrigued by the prospect of fairly cheap 7200 or even 5400/5900 RPM drives dominating a solution and placing SSDs at the edge for caching. I know enterprises do this all the time in full-blown tiered storage, but what about SMBs? Are people doing this? If so, how? What's the best way to get the best of both worlds without adding a ton of solution complexity or cost?
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Reply to williamvw
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Currently, our company is now offering SSDs as the main drive for most employee laptops being assigned, starting earlier in 2014. Mind you, they are a mixture of 120GB and 240GB offerings, but for bulk discount rates (I assume), the drop in storage (320GB-500GB) down to these smaller sizes is fine for most people given the speed benefits. Couple an SSD with an i3 or i5 mobile CPU and 4-8GB RAM and you have a pretty snappy little mobile device compared to the exact same machine with a slow 5400 RPM platter drive. Developer models are usually beefier with a mobile i7 and 8-16GB RAM and always a SSD.
Of course, there are still offerings that are HDDs, but I would venture to guess that bulk pricing and partnership for a Dell/Lenovo/HP/etc would offer an enterprise a better cut on hardware purchasing than the average individual and we'll start seeing these go away soon. I personally have had 3 platter HDD's completely die on my work devices where an SSD would be far more immune to bumps and jarring of transport to/from meetings as well as daily travel.
Of course, there are still offerings that are HDDs, but I would venture to guess that bulk pricing and partnership for a Dell/Lenovo/HP/etc would offer an enterprise a better cut on hardware purchasing than the average individual and we'll start seeing these go away soon. I personally have had 3 platter HDD's completely die on my work devices where an SSD would be far more immune to bumps and jarring of transport to/from meetings as well as daily travel.
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Reply to rubix_1011
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What prompted the company in question to switch up, rubix? Was it the cost drop?
Currently running a Samsung 256gb SSD with a 1 TB HDD on my workstation machine, but if I were making a company-wide decision and had to go with one singular storage option, it would probably be just SSD to avoid the future pains of switching up. The platter storage is great if you don't have NAS, but that wouldn't be a problem with one or cloud integrated.
How about performance? Were they measuring any change or metrics on the switch up?
-JP
Currently running a Samsung 256gb SSD with a 1 TB HDD on my workstation machine, but if I were making a company-wide decision and had to go with one singular storage option, it would probably be just SSD to avoid the future pains of switching up. The platter storage is great if you don't have NAS, but that wouldn't be a problem with one or cloud integrated.
How about performance? Were they measuring any change or metrics on the switch up?
-JP
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Reply to jpishgar
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RackMountProcom
April 15, 2014 10:23:32 AM
I always recommend enterprise SSD in every desktop and server to my customers, ( Samsung 840 Evo for workstations, / a pair of 840 Pro or Intel 530 series SSD on raid 1 for the servers ) because the enterprise SSD are just far more reliable than the desktop models.
As for data, you can choose western digital black drives or any of the enterprise NAS optimized HDD ( approx $200 for a 4TB HDD ) , or, if budget allows, use SAS Drives for better performance, reliability and consistency, they are designed to run 24/7/365 ( approx. $325 for a 4TB SAS drive )
As for data, you can choose western digital black drives or any of the enterprise NAS optimized HDD ( approx $200 for a 4TB HDD ) , or, if budget allows, use SAS Drives for better performance, reliability and consistency, they are designed to run 24/7/365 ( approx. $325 for a 4TB SAS drive )
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RackMountProcom
April 15, 2014 12:02:47 PM
The desktop SSDs have a very high failure rate within the first 3 years ( we have very bad experience with crucial and even corsair SSDs, nearly 10% failed just within the 1st year ) they are barely good enough for home entertainment or gaming, but for a workstation, an extra $20-30 for a 840 EVO is well worth it. Most online reviews tell the same story.
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Reply to RackMountProcom
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jpishgar said:
What prompted the company in question to switch up, rubix? Was it the cost drop?Currently running a Samsung 256gb SSD with a 1 TB HDD on my workstation machine, but if I were making a company-wide decision and had to go with one singular storage option, it would probably be just SSD to avoid the future pains of switching up. The platter storage is great if you don't have NAS, but that wouldn't be a problem with one or cloud integrated.
How about performance? Were they measuring any change or metrics on the switch up?
-JP
I am not certain, to be honest, but I would assume being a large enterprise contract as well as dropping SSD prices in conjunction with the speed/reliability/battery life/HDD failures. Considering that you have several thousand employees, even the reduction in power costs alone might prove to be enough for executive approval...couple that with 'employees getting to work faster' at the start of every day and who wouldn't put their Herbie Hancock on that.
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Reply to rubix_1011
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2Be_or_Not2Be
April 15, 2014 12:35:30 PM
SSDs simply make everything go faster. That's "faster" in the business sense. If I'm looking for a specific email from a large PST file, a SSD will retrieve it faster. If I'm loading up Visual Studio 2013, everything loads, compiles, and runs faster. If I'm only just running MS Office apps with a number of Internet browser windows open, everything runs more smoothly & faster with a SSD.
We've begun to standardize on SSDs across the client enterprise. At first, we only had them in laptops for the SED aspect and the improved response/speed of a SSD. Now we are rolling them out into desktops as well. We're also beginning to standardize on them for Hyper-V virtual server hosts to improve response times as well, especially for those times when ordinarily the host's storage is being thrashed by 10-12 virtual guests. They greatly reduce some of the performance drops in virtualizing machines.
We've begun to standardize on SSDs across the client enterprise. At first, we only had them in laptops for the SED aspect and the improved response/speed of a SSD. Now we are rolling them out into desktops as well. We're also beginning to standardize on them for Hyper-V virtual server hosts to improve response times as well, especially for those times when ordinarily the host's storage is being thrashed by 10-12 virtual guests. They greatly reduce some of the performance drops in virtualizing machines.
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Reply to 2Be_or_Not2Be
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2Be_or_Not2Be said:
SSDs simply make everything go faster. That's "faster" in the business sense. If I'm looking for a specific email from a large PST file, a SSD will retrieve it faster. If I'm loading up Visual Studio 2013, everything loads, compiles, and runs faster. If I'm only just running MS Office apps with a number of Internet browser windows open, everything runs more smoothly & faster with a SSD.We've begun to standardize on SSDs across the client enterprise. At first, we only had them in laptops for the SED aspect and the improved response/speed of a SSD. Now we are rolling them out into desktops as well. We're also beginning to standardize on them for Hyper-V virtual server hosts to improve response times as well, especially for those times when ordinarily the host's storage is being thrashed by 10-12 virtual guests. They greatly reduce some of the performance drops in virtualizing machines.
This is great to know. Have you been able at all to quantify the difference for your organization of stepping up into enterprise SSDs? Or -- considering what Keith just said above -- are you using enterprise models, client models, or both?
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Reply to williamvw
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2Be_or_Not2Be
April 16, 2014 10:02:16 AM
williamvw said:
2Be_or_Not2Be said:
SSDs simply make everything go faster. That's "faster" in the business sense. If I'm looking for a specific email from a large PST file, a SSD will retrieve it faster. If I'm loading up Visual Studio 2013, everything loads, compiles, and runs faster. If I'm only just running MS Office apps with a number of Internet browser windows open, everything runs more smoothly & faster with a SSD.We've begun to standardize on SSDs across the client enterprise. At first, we only had them in laptops for the SED aspect and the improved response/speed of a SSD. Now we are rolling them out into desktops as well. We're also beginning to standardize on them for Hyper-V virtual server hosts to improve response times as well, especially for those times when ordinarily the host's storage is being thrashed by 10-12 virtual guests. They greatly reduce some of the performance drops in virtualizing machines.
This is great to know. Have you been able at all to quantify the difference for your organization of stepping up into enterprise SSDs? Or -- considering what Keith just said above -- are you using enterprise models, client models, or both?
For servers, we use enterprise SSDs, mainly Intel (DC-S3500, S3700). For clients, we're using Samsung 840 Pro/EVO, at least until Dell gets their SSD pricing to reasonable amounts. The Intel 730 SSD is piquing my interest, though.
As far as quantifying, that's harder to say as I don't have hard stats for every single client/server. However, on one of our database servers, using SSDs has sped up access by at least 50% over even an array of 15k rpm SAS drives. Even on my own machine, I easily save time every day with a SSD as my main drive.
Edit: Percentage of access sped up by 75%, not 25%
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Reply to 2Be_or_Not2Be
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I haven't had the opportunity to roll out SSDs in a server environment yet except in my own testing equipment. However, I've been reading up online for quite some time about the shift towards their utilization in many business server aspects from small single server solutions to full SAN arrays based on flash storage.
On the end user, though, we have highly recommended SSD upgrades for anyone because truth be told it's the best upgrade for a computer that one can buy right now. For example, we recently have been selling a great number of the HP ProBook 450 G1 laptops because of their low cost and high value. But when you look at the cost for these laptops, there is more than $100 difference between the more entry Core i3-4000M model and the Core i5-4200M model. The performance difference, though, that you get for that additional $100 will be hardly noticeable especially in normal day-to-day usage. However, invest that $100 instead into a Samsung 840 EVO SSD and you have just improved the whole system responsiveness far greater than the processor upgrade would have provided.
When it comes to recommending a solid state drive, for us at least it really comes down to reputable reliability. Even if it is going to cost a little more, I'm going to recommend and sell to my customers the drive that is going to last longer because quite honestly I don't want the headache of handling it when the drive fails in one or two years. Based on a lot of reviews and input from around online and our own testing, that's lead me to Intel and Samsung SSDs, mostly Samsung lately because they offer greater value at a lower cost. These drives work great for end user computers.
That being said, Intel 530/730 drives or Samsung 840/EVO/PRO drives are not enterprise SSDs. Even though the 840 Pro has RAID support and MLC memory, it's not really built for a demanding server situation with long lifespan. Most SSDs still have a limited write lifespan, and I've read several reports of people using these SSDs in server environments only to see failures greatly increase (within one to two years) over true enterprise SSDs like the Intel DC-S3700 or high endurance SLC flash SSDs. Obviously of course there is also a cost difference between these drives. But that choice comes down to the end user, their budget, and their expected usage. If you don't foresee having a huge amount of writes on your drive and really hammering it to death, then you may be able to utilize the cheaper drive to help afford the jump to SSD over traditional hard drives.
On the end user, though, we have highly recommended SSD upgrades for anyone because truth be told it's the best upgrade for a computer that one can buy right now. For example, we recently have been selling a great number of the HP ProBook 450 G1 laptops because of their low cost and high value. But when you look at the cost for these laptops, there is more than $100 difference between the more entry Core i3-4000M model and the Core i5-4200M model. The performance difference, though, that you get for that additional $100 will be hardly noticeable especially in normal day-to-day usage. However, invest that $100 instead into a Samsung 840 EVO SSD and you have just improved the whole system responsiveness far greater than the processor upgrade would have provided.
When it comes to recommending a solid state drive, for us at least it really comes down to reputable reliability. Even if it is going to cost a little more, I'm going to recommend and sell to my customers the drive that is going to last longer because quite honestly I don't want the headache of handling it when the drive fails in one or two years. Based on a lot of reviews and input from around online and our own testing, that's lead me to Intel and Samsung SSDs, mostly Samsung lately because they offer greater value at a lower cost. These drives work great for end user computers.
That being said, Intel 530/730 drives or Samsung 840/EVO/PRO drives are not enterprise SSDs. Even though the 840 Pro has RAID support and MLC memory, it's not really built for a demanding server situation with long lifespan. Most SSDs still have a limited write lifespan, and I've read several reports of people using these SSDs in server environments only to see failures greatly increase (within one to two years) over true enterprise SSDs like the Intel DC-S3700 or high endurance SLC flash SSDs. Obviously of course there is also a cost difference between these drives. But that choice comes down to the end user, their budget, and their expected usage. If you don't foresee having a huge amount of writes on your drive and really hammering it to death, then you may be able to utilize the cheaper drive to help afford the jump to SSD over traditional hard drives.
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Reply to choucove
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2Be_or_Not2Be
April 18, 2014 7:10:07 AM
choucove said:
If you don't foresee having a huge amount of writes on your drive and really hammering it to death, then you may be able to utilize the cheaper drive to help afford the jump to SSD over traditional hard drives.
A good point about having a usage scenario where you don't have a lot of writes - the Intel S3500 was designed for that purpose. When you research the type of enterprise SSDs that you might utilize, often you will see how the mfg intended the drive. For Intel, they intended the S3500 to be used more for read-intensive, and the S3700 could handle both read-intensive and more write-intensive tasks. The endurance specs on the SSDs clearly show that design. Of course, each were specifically designed to have consistent performance - meaning they wouldn't have drop-offs in their output, which might cause your server to have more spikes and valleys in their performance.
So make sure you're getting the type of SSD that your scenario demands. Check out the mfg's specs on the drive to see what its intended use might be. Also, if you get too worried about drive write endurance, you can always over-provision the drives manually yourself by not formatting them out to their fullest capacity. Any amount of extra space will allow the drive to better manage how it distributes the writes to keep the memory cells lasting as long as possible.
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Reply to 2Be_or_Not2Be
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BD24News
September 3, 2014 12:36:40 AM
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