Storage question HDD vs SSD

[TomSerious]

Hello!

I see many servers using HDDs for storage, what would be the drawback of using SSDs?

Googling only brought up maybe price as a drawback, but for our application this is negligible.

 

We are planning on a new Server for our small company in the near future.

Currently we use only about 800GB on our entire Server (some Shares + CRM program + 2 VMs) on 2 x 2TB HDDs in RAID1.

 

Now couldn't we just get 2 x 4 TB SSDs (futureproofing) in RAID1 and be happy everything goes faster?

Regarding the "limited" reads/writes, we could just switch them out after a few years if we see that they near their end.

 

Thank you in advance!

[Kilrah]

Definitely go SSD if you can eat the cost, preferably enterprise drives because the reliability/endurance is an order of magnitude above consumer stuff.

[aDoomGuy]

SSD will loose data if they sit X amount of time without power. If this don't matter then sure. Get SSD. What you perhaps could do if it is a problem. Get SSD and back them up to HDD.

[jauxan]

On big datacenters mainly price, It's not worth it. Try buying a 18TB SSD (or more) for the same price as an HDD: (For companies it is even cheaper. They buy it in large quantities and do not pay VAT)
--> Also reliability.



 

There are also servers with SSD but those are far less compared to HDD ones. And far expensive to buy/rent.

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, TomSerious said:

Regarding the "limited" reads/writes, we could just switch them out after a few years if we see that they near their end.

Good SSDs will outlast the useful life of the system it is in, probably even the next. The bigger concern isn't write wear, it's general component failure so going with RAID 1 is a good idea here.

 

Enterprise Mixed Use SSDs are generally a good choice, they cost more but are greatly more endurant. Enterprise Read Optimized SSDs are also an option for light usage profiles which is likely your situation, they are quite a bit less endurant but you can mitigate that by buy larger capacity than is required and/or keeping used space % low as free space is used for write leveling and increases NAND lifespan.

[TomSerious]

Just now, aDoomGuy said:

SSD will loose data if they sit X amount of time without power. If this don't matter then sure. Get SSD. What you perhaps could do if it is a problem. Get SSD and back them up to HDD.

Thanks, Server will be running 24/7 and is in use every business day.

And yes, we have daily HDD backups and monthly offsite backup

16 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Definitely go SSD if you can eat the cost, preferably enterprise drives because the reliability/endurance is an order of magnitude above consumer stuff.

Thank you! Yeah then we will definitely go SSD

[wseaton]

 

Now couldn't we just get 2 x 4 TB SSDs (futureproofing) in RAID1 and be happy everything goes faster?

 

Yup. It's RAID 1 that's up for argument.

Every production server I've deployed over the past 2 years is SSD based. I've converted dozens of production boxes to SSD from spinning drives, and never looked back. Data center grade SSD's are orders of magnitude more reliable than spinners.

 

I know a lot of MSPs and 75% or more of their deployments are SSD. Not sure where you are getting this info, but spinning HD's are mow only used for mass storage repositories where latency isn't an issue. If you have gig ethernet as your network, or just wifi having SSD in your file server is a waste of money because your network is the bottleneck. Applications on the other hand love it. 

 

Also, fewer and fewer small businesses are running on prem servers. If they can they are moving it to the cloud.

 

The biggest headache with SSD and servers is the dealing with RAID. NVMe RAID is a pain in the neck, and your typical hardware based RAID controller has a higher rate of failure than the SSD storage it's in front of making RAID an oxymoron. This is why software RAID is the best solution, but isn't quite as easy to set up than your typical Dell with Perc RAID card. The cheaper, budget onboard RAID solutions that are sold with entry level servers are garbage. A decent hardware RAID controller that can keep up with SSD's is going to be a $600 or more option. 

 

SSD will loose data if they sit X amount of time without power.

 

First hand experience? Or, that's what the 'expert' working at Subway with a polyester hat says?

[voyager_]

18 hours ago, wseaton said:

SSD will loose data if they sit X amount of time without power.

 

First hand experience? Or, that's what the 'expert' working at Subway with a polyester hat says?

It can Happen, it takes a couple of years for it to occur. I think the minimum is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-5 years though. Im sure cheap no name drives will be on the shorter end. It really shouldn't be an issues for the vast amount of users, especially in a production machine. 

[voyager_]

It's really done to cost and performance requirements. I know our IT department has everything using HDs but we really need the capacity and with that same storage mirrored over every office the cost really adds up. Some of the projects that I work on the raw files are typically between 300-500Gb then I have the exports and project files. If your only using 800Gb then SSD would be a great option for the performance and the reliability 

[ewitte]

On 1/4/2023 at 3:45 AM, Kilrah said:

Definitely go SSD if you can eat the cost, preferably enterprise drives because the reliability/endurance is an order of magnitude above consumer stuff.

My PM963 is rated at 1.3DWPD (5PB).  That was actually my lowest cost per GB drive as well.  At work we have a SAN with something like 24 3.84TB drives in it.