Can I use desktop SSD on Server in RAID ?

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jai_123

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Feb 29, 2016
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I am wondering can we use a normal note/desktop SSD on a server in RAID 1.

Samsung 850 Pro
Crucial MX200
Transcend SSD370
SanDisk Extreme Pro

I understand consumer level ssd's could be less reliable on heavy duty professional use. But what is you suggestion using similar SSD's on light load servers.
 
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techgeek
I don't see an issue using consumer grade SSD's (other than write endurance) on a server. I assume that the RAID controller is a dedicated RAID controller. You'll have redundancy with RAID 1, so you should be good.

Even with light loads though I would stick with MLC based drives like the ones listed above. I really like Samsung's drives personally.
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techgeek

techgeek

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I don't see an issue using consumer grade SSD's (other than write endurance) on a server. I assume that the RAID controller is a dedicated RAID controller. You'll have redundancy with RAID 1, so you should be good.

Even with light loads though I would stick with MLC based drives like the ones listed above. I really like Samsung's drives personally.
 
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R

rkzhao

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Mar 8, 2016
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generally the difference between consumer grade SSDs and enterprise grade SSDs are just the lack of power loss protection (so don't pull power abruptly), cheaper TLC NAND, and lower over provisioning.

All these drives are MLC so that helps. Both the Crucial and Transcend have very basic minimal power loss protection. The SanDisk has the most over provisioning, where as the Transcend seems to have no over provisioning. If it were up to me, I'd pick between the Crucial or the SanDisk depending on what you think your needs are. Samsung is rarely a bad choice though.
 
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J

jai_123

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Feb 29, 2016
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Thanks for all the prompt responses and suggestions, They are indeed very helpful.

As suggested I think the main advantage of enterprise SSD will be full power loss protection along with encryption possibilities. Surprisingly I cannot see much difference in Endurance.

Considering 500GB SSD for comparison: ( referring http://www.anandtech.com review )

Name -- Endurance - Grade
Intel DC S3510 480GB -- 275TB - Enterprise SSD
Samsung PM863 480GB -- 700TB - Enterprise SSD
Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB -- 150TB - Consumer-grade SSD
SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB -- 80TB - Consumer-grade SSD
Crucial MX200 500GB -- 160TB - Consumer-grade SSD
Transcend SSD370 512GB -- 550TB - Consumer-grade SSD

Now my consideration is which will give best performance on a OS based RAID 1 and give me power loss protection at least for data-at-rest.

I've read about tantalum capacitors (used in Enterprise SSD for power loss protection) and ceramic capacitors lately. Is it guaranteed Transcend SSD370 / Crucial MX200 protects against corruption of existing data in the case of a power-loss ?

I will really appreciate your suggestions.
 
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Spectre694

Spectre694

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The capacitors (advanced power loss protection) are so that the drive can write whatever data is left in its cache and then properly standby. This avoids corruption on unexpected power loss. and prevents the drive from having to roll back like below as well as still fully honoring the ATA Flush command.

Some drives (most consumer drives particularly iirc) preform a sort of journaling on writes (basic power loss protection) that allows the drive to recover to an earlier state on power loss. This can (though quite rare) cause the RAID data to become inconsistent as they could possibly roll back to slightly different times.

The capacitors that protect data at rest are a slightly different form of basic power loss protection. They help to prevent corruption of any data that is already written to a cell due to gate coupling (long and technical there are articles though if you want to look it up.). This applies more to the oddities of Planar MLC NAND than anything else. Samsung's V-NAND doesn't have this issue so the journaling accomplishes the same thing without the capacitors.

The best is to use a drive with full backup capacitors but any server should still be attached to a UPS as well.
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Sep 17, 2012
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If you have a RAID card with a BBU then you don't have to worry about it as much.

And as everyone has said nothing wrong with using consumer grade hard drives. Use them all the time for extra storage for a lot of my clients. Just note that you can NOT mix SAS and SATA HDD/SSD in the SAME RAID Configuration. You can have like 2 SAS SSD's and 2 SATA SSD's on the same RAID card but you can not make a RAID 10 or 5 with those. You can do two seperate RAID's between the two kinda. Just keep that in mind, but either way it is always best to have the same exact brand of hard drive for each RAID Array anways.
 
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Spectre694

Spectre694

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Nah it is weird. Once you up or downvote that's it you can't change your mind or fix accidental clicks. It just says you have already voted if you try.
 
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J

jai_123

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Feb 29, 2016
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In case of RAID 1 power loss protection and avoid any sort of data corruption, journaling mechanism in Samsung SSD or ceramic capacitors mechanism (in Transcend) will be good? Do we need to really worry about the rare case possibility while considering RAID 1 using consumer grade SSDs.
 
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Spectre694

Spectre694

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I personally wouldn't have an issue running it. Your really more likely to run into some sort of OS failure or RAID card failure that goofs the array rather than inconsistency from the disks breaking it. And a UPS on the server or a BBU on the card like drtweak said would basically zero that possibility.

tl;dr: Should be just fine.

EDIT: realized this was never mentioned but standard disclaimer:

RAID is NOT a backup
 
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P

paullyh

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Mar 31, 2011
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If you are in the Pro league in your search, for an additional 15% premium I would choose the Samsung PM863 (or SM863), i.e. real enterprise SSDs. You will get those tantalum capacitors and better QoS overall. You may read they white papers for more info.
 
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