2.5" HDD or SSD

[Nicolai]

Hello all you wonderful people

I've ordered most of the parts for my new storage server for my job, but I still haven't ordered the actual storage devices themselves yet, due to I can't make up my mind. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to hear what you guys think and why.

I'm trying to choose between a WD Red Plus 2.5" WD10JFCX and a WD Red SSD 2.5" WDS100T1R0A.

Best regards

 

[WANg]

Hello all you wonderful people

I've ordered most of the parts for my new storage server for my job, but I still haven't ordered the actual storage devices themselves yet, due to I can't make up my mind. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to hear what you guys think and why.

I'm trying to choose between a WD Red Plus 2.5" WD10JFCX and a WD Red SSD 2.5" WDS100T1R0A.

Best regards

What’s the usage case for the server, what’s the pricing difference, and are you sure you are suppose to use SATA instead of SAS?

 

[Nicolai]

What’s the usage case for the server, what’s the pricing difference, and are you sure you are suppose to use SATA instead of SAS?

The use case is just a regular storage server for me and my 1 man business and a bit of plex. I don't need SAS, as the hot swap bays I'm getting are equipped with 4 SATA3 connections each. The price differences are just shy of double up from HDD to SSD. I'm considering using SSDs because of the lower heat generation, lower power consumption and lower noise levels.

 

[WANg]

The use case is just a regular storage server for me and my 1 man business and a bit of plex. I don't need SAS, as the hot swap bays I'm getting are equipped with 4 SATA3 connections each. The price differences are just shy of double up from HDD to SSD. I'm considering using SSDs because of the lower heat generation, lower power consumption and lower noise levels.

These are both...1TB drives? I mean, if it's the difference between paying 60 USD for hard drives and 110 for SSDs, yeah, SSD is a no-brainer. Most SATA SSDs will easily perform close to or at the SATA interface maximum throughputs, and its latency and response time will be orders of magnitude better than the spinners. Hell, SATA is holding them back for the past 5-6 years (although most end users will not know the meaning of slow I/O lest you grew up on 4200rpm iPod drives). A single NVMe drive with a fast SSD controller will perform (I/O wise) better than entire SAN disk shelves in the past.
You only use spinners for bulk storage where cheaper price per GB actually matters. For anything under 2TB (current as of Q3 2020), go SSD.

 

[Netwerkz101]

I'm trying to choose between a WD Red Plus 2.5" WD10JFCX and a WD Red SSD 2.5" WDS100T1R0A.

See below .. i think you pretty much answered your own question.

I'm considering using SSDs because of the lower heat generation, lower power consumption and lower noise levels.

SSD also has better Reliability/Endurance numbers + longer warranty compared to the HDD.

My only reason for going with spinning rust at this point is high capacity/$ ... usually to back up the data on SSDs.

 

[Nicolai]

Thank you both for your input! It's much appreciated. I wasn't sure if cost was the only benefit conventional HDDs have over SSDs, so I wanted to post the question here.

 

[Markess]

The use case is just a regular storage server for me and my 1 man business and a bit of plex. I don't need SAS, as the hot swap bays I'm getting are equipped with 4 SATA3 connections each. The price differences are just shy of double up from HDD to SSD. I'm considering using SSDs because of the lower heat generation, lower power consumption and lower noise levels.

You don't mention what operating system you plan to use. You may want to verify if your operating system of choice supports SSD arrays.

In my case, I'd thought to replace the HDDs in my Unraid array with some SSDs left over from a project, but found out that while Unraid can use SSDs for cache, they don't work well in an Unraid array.

 

[Nicolai]

You don't mention what operating system you plan to use. You may want to verify if your operating system of choice supports SSD arrays.

In my case, I'd thought to replace the HDDs in my Unraid array with some SSDs left over from a project, but found out that while Unraid can use SSDs for cache, they don't work well in an Unraid array.

I was going to use unraid. How come they don't work well in an array?

 

[Markess]

I was going to use unraid. How come they don't work well in an array?

Smart people, please feel free to jump in if I get this wrong. Even though I'm using it, I'm strictly an amateur when it comes to Unraid!

From what I read on the Unraid forums, TRIM for array drives isn't supported by the Unraid Filesystem. And because the Parity Drives have no file system perform TRIM on, they wouldn't support TRIM even if the Unraid Filesystem did. On top of that, the parity system tracks all the bits on the array drives, not just what's currently journaled, so you can't take the drives offine to perform TRIM with a different FS, because it would mess up the parity.

TRIM does work on Cache drives though. So, I was considering putting the SSDs in RAID 10 and letting the data I access most just sit there, But, I'm also on the search for a solution that is as easy to use as Unraid, but also supports TRIM.

 

[Markess]

Hi @Nicolai

Saw your thread over at the Unraid forums. Based on your use case above and the info you got in that thread (thanks for asking the question over there), I really think the WD SSDs ought to work fine for you. Some notes that may help:

-- No matter what happens with TRIM the availability of TRIM support, now or in the future, these SSDs will be MUCH faster than the spinning HDD you were also considering. No question there.

-- Over on the Unraid forum I know some people talked about SSD slowdown with out TRIM. There will be some compared to if TRIM were supported, but they will still be faster than your system can push the data over the network, so you probably won't even notice the difference if you aren't obsessively benchmarking.

-- No moving parts is a plus in terms of wear and tear over a mechanical HDD, as other folks stated. This is the main plus in my mind for my particular use case.

-- With no TRIM support, the primary issue is that writes to the array disks will increase in normal use. Specifically, when dealing with deleted files. With TRIM when you delete. the SSD only deletes the selected files. Without TRIM, the deletion process actually includes a relocation of the impacted blocks in their entriety and a rewrite of the block where it was originally, but without the deleted file(s). This two step write process is where the "slowdown" people mention comes. But again, still faster than a HDD and a 1GB network connection.

-- But, the extra writes will also have an obvious adverse impact on the lifespan (endurance) of your SSD. That's why you see folks recommending an "Enterprise" drive, with more Endurance (usually via more Overprovisioning) when you can't enable TRIM. The WD RED SSDs you are considering have a 600TB endurance for the 1TB model. This is 50% more endurance than the WD Blue 1TB SSDs. So, definitely more lifespan in the RED! There's some drives out there with much greater endurance, but they also cost a lot more. And honestly, it will probably take a long time to amass 600TB of writes in your sole proprietor business situation where the server is just for you.

I'd be interested to know how it turns out. I'm usually the only user of my own Unraid system, so I'd probably be OK with an SSD array too I guess, but I tend to be a lot more timid