SSD Developments
When discussing SSD performance, it’s important to define what performance actually means. The term is either used to measure speed or to look at metrics like power consumption, efficiency, or performance per watt. In the storage segment, capacity per dollar or per watt can be key metrics, while top-performance systems, particularly in enterprises, can benefit from high I/O performance per watt.
Consumers will look at throughput numbers first, which range anywhere from 180 to more than 300 MB/s for sequential read operations and 80 to 300 MB/s for writes. Most products are limited by the SATA 3Gb/s interface to less than 300 MB/s peak performance, but even the few drives available with 6 Gb/s interfaces aren’t always the best choice, since their I/O performance doesn’t scale with interface bandwidth. All the horsepower in the world doesn’t matter if you’re stuck at an intersection.
Most SSDs are based on multi-channel architectures that combine various flash memory lines to maximize performance. Because of this, increasing interface bandwidth might not always be necessary. The only item left to improve is the flash memory itself.
What’s Driving Flash Memory Growth?
As you can see from Samsung’s data, SSDs are getting close to roughly 10% share in NAND flash memory utilization. The projection shows SSD becoming almost 20% of the NAND flash market by 2012. The only other segment that should see even larger growth is ultramobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones.
Performance: Next Steps
What does this mean in terms of performance? The chart above is also from a Samsung presentation, but it’s representative of what double data rate (DDR) NAND flash can do compared to conventional SDR flash products. Samsung states a 10% to 35% increase in I/O performance thanks to this technology tweak. Keep in mind that you will not see more throughput, but the number of individual transactions could increase.
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Just wow.
yes but you forgot to consider that
2 SSDs: 2*699= $1398
8 HDDs: 8*300= $2400
Seems pretty clear to me now!
Aside from that, Really interesting article, really enjoyed reading it! Editors, give these guys a raise!
It has been evident since the very launch of the SSD's that they are the performance kings and mechanical hard drives are a no match compared to them.. However, data redundancy is a critical factor along with the cost per gb.. Power factors can be sidelined for sometime as even the fast mechanical hard drives don't consume that much of power.. SSD's do have the noise advantage though.. So, for the time being, it looks like both solutions will co exist until when SSD's completely take over.. Its all a matter of pricing for now.. A 500GB SSD at half the price of the current existing 250GB model will surely shift all the market in their favour (desktops + servers/workstations)..
Like kids in a tree house.
HDD for fileserver/backup - SSD for the rest, thats how i manage my data and it works very well.
xbeater:
yes but you forgot to consider that
2 SSDs: 2*699= $1398
8 HDDs: 8*300= $2400
==============================
wow where did u get your HDD's. I can pick one up for ~130 which = 2TB..
One for OS & one for high use apps the rest on HDD.
Getting rid of my power sucking heat producing gas turbine loud raid array as soon as the store opens.
Oh yeahhhhhhhhhh.
Would have been neat to see the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives tested. I know I blasted Seagate in one of the previous articles on here, but that doesnt mean Im not contemplating getting 2 of the XT's for a raid setup. I just wish they would put more options out, like drives with varyingly increasing amounts of flash inside, such as 8GB, 16GB, and maybe even 32GB. That way you still have a decent amount of platter storage, but a nice little turbo boost via the SSD part of the drive.
Ok, got a little off topic there, sorry.
Anyway, it was an all round interesting article none-the-less.
I might be missing something as I don't own an SSD drive and probably won't for some time, but I was under the impression that even with TRIM implemented SSD drives are not best to be used as drives you frequently write to as writing and re-writing effects overall performance over time.
I'm just looking at the servers at my work and thinking to myself how expensive it would be if they were using SSDs and having to replace them over time because after being written and re-written over and over their performance decays to the point that they are no longer usable.
That is if we are talking about enterprise servers of course, for a home server I guess SSDs could be a viable option, but I just don't understand how these are really practical for a large business considering how expensive SSD drives are and their short life span with being written to so frequently in a large business.
Again, I could be missing something here...
xbeater:yes but you forgot to consider that2 SSDs: 2*699= $13988 HDDs: 8*300= $2400==============================wow where did u get your HDD's. I can pick one up for ~130 which = 2TB..
Did you even read the article?? They are talking about Enterprise Class drives, not your typical Desktop drive!
WTF?!?! Your comparing enterprise level HDD's to home user SSD's here!!!!!
A 128GB SLC SSD will run you £819 ($1,312), MLC based SSD's are just not good enough for enterprise storage use due to their limited lifespan which is fine for a home PC but they would be dead in less than 6 months in an enterprise database server.
Great misleading article, I hear next week you bring us the shock revelation that the Toyota Prius is more economic than the Ford Mustang and therefore a much better car for racing... >.>
When a Mustang does 170MPH and that magical Prius will do 220MPH, yes, the Prius would be a better car for racing. Not as cool looking, but it's racing.
We all can see that storage technology shifting some ware....but for most users GB/Cost is one of the important factors...Ware I/O is a factor SSD is the way to go....In all other cases i think not. Good article with expected outcome...cant see the point sry
WTF?!?! Your comparing enterprise level HDD's to home user SSD's here!!!!!A 128GB SLC SSD will run you £819 ($1,312), MLC based SSD's are just not good enough for enterprise storage use due to their limited lifespan which is fine for a home PC but they would be dead in less than 6 months in an enterprise database server.
The reliability part can be fixed with hot-swap trays, RAID-5/RAID-6 and hot spares. What can't be fixed is the cost over time, as you pointed out.
why didn't they use the new ssd from crucial? they are wayyyy faster
Very interesting article. I've started to see more SAN vendors putting in SSDs for those who absolutely must have performance - sure they're expensive, but you just tier the data, so the necessary stuff is in Tier 1 and the rest falls to Tier 2 and beyond...very cool.
Nice article again...
Damn! I want to see 3 or 4 of those SSD's in RAID0.
I