Advantages of ssd as a OS drive for servers

[Junior admin]

Dear friends,

Guys, we going to build a hardware for windows server 2012. So i need to know the advantages of SSD be a OS drive over HDD be a OS drive.

Except fast booting, low power consumption, light weight and no noise, ssd have any other features or not?


Thanks,
Junior admin.

 

[T_Minus]

Faster

PLP

Are we doing your job research, lol?

 

[mstone]

...apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

 

[Deslok]

no spinning rust to fail, smaller formfactors(I've seen the s3500 in a 1.8in factor) improved response times quicker install/updates I guess the better question is how much money are they thinking they can save by not going SSD? enterprise drives aren't cheap on either side but as far as OS goes you can get these DC 3510 drives for around 1$/gb(120 dollar 120gb drive) and you don't really need more than that for the server OS install.

 

[Junior admin]

Thanks for your valuable information Deslok..

 

[Fritz]

I've picked up several 160 and 180gb Intel SSD's on eBay for around $40 each. They pop up at that price on a regular basis. i grab them when I find them.

 

[Deslok]

I've picked up several 160 and 180gb Intel SSD's on eBay for around $40 each. They pop up at that price on a regular basis. i grab them when I find them.

much better prices, what drives are you seeing at that the old ssd320 drives?

 

[Fritz]

much better prices, what drives are you seeing at that the old ssd320 drives?

I prefer the 6gb drives. DC series even more so. I recently snagged a 480gb S3500 for $169 delivered. I needed a larger drive for my workstation build and it was a perfect fit. I'm still using the very first SSD I ever bought, It's an Intel X25 80gb. It's been running 24/7 in a server for years and has been 100% reliable. The 320s are good drives too. They're great for older laptops.

 

[Deslok]

I prefer the 6gb drives. DC series even more so. I recently snagged a 480gb S3500 for $169 delivered. I needed a larger drive for my workstation build and it was a perfect fit. I'm still using the very first SSD I ever bought, It's an Intel X25 80gb. It's been running 24/7 in a server for years and has been 100% reliable. The 320s are good drives too. They're great for older laptops.

oh I don't blame you for prefering 6gb drive I do to, I was just curious what you were finding for ~40
I have a pair of intel 320's I use for VM storage right now, not that they're Ideal but the price of, well I have these, is very attractive.

 

[Fritz]

The last one was a 180gb 1500 series for $42.99 delivered.

Back in Jan. I bought a 520 series 180gb for $39.00 delivered.

Also this year I bought a couple of 320 series 3gb for about the same price.

To me, $40 is to much for anything less than a 160gb.

 

[T_Minus]

fwiw the 520, and 1500 don't have power loss protection -- the 320, 710, S3500, S3700 on the other hand do.

 

[Fritz]

fwiw the 520, and 1500 don't have power loss protection -- the 320, 710, S3500, S3700 on the other hand do.

Thanks. Nice to know.

 

[dataoscar]

fwiw the 520, and 1500 don't have power loss protection -- the 320, 710, S3500, S3700 on the other hand do.

Do you happen to have or know where I could find a list like this for other brands? I need another ssd to use as an slog device.

 

[PigLover]

fwiw the 520, and 1500 don't have power loss protection -- the 320, 710, S3500, S3700 on the other hand do.

What value is PLP for the OS/Boot drive. I get it for a ZIL/SLOG, but that's an off topic discussion for this thread.

 

[T_Minus]

Do you happen to have or know where I could find a list like this for other brands? I need another ssd to use as an slog device.

I don't, but most enterprise drives as of current claim to have some sort of power loss protection be-it firmware and/or hardware in place.

What value is PLP for the OS/Boot drive. I get it for a ZIL/SLOG, but that's an off topic discussion for this thread.

My understanding is this... and someone correct me if I'm wrong:

Since most drives temporarily store data in cache any 'sudden power loss' could cause an issue and depending on what's in that cache would obviously determine if it's a system-wide issue, or specific to a single application.

How can this occur?
- Accidentally removing the wrong drive from hot-swap
- Accidentally yanking the wrong power cable on the wrong server that may not have been shut down.
- Accidentally bumping a power plug when working on the back of a rack / getting caught and yanking it completely on accident.
- Power failure w/out battery backup on the system to issue a shut down command

I believe in windows sometimes 'sudden power loss' even occurs during shut down that is planned due to the timing and requests sent to SSD... but blue screen, and other crashes are 'sudden power loss' too... which obv. are already bad, but could affect other apps going on, etc... (not sure the specifics on these)

To me, it's just one more (cheap) safety precaution for an OS drive just like mirroring the OS drive is. The Intel S3500 and S3510 are cheap for what they offer in terms of longevity, consistency, performance and PLP for all but heavy write work-loads and have become my new 'go to' OS drive, and drives for mirrored ZFS pools where high performance but low-medium write work loads exist.

I'm not sure if this is an issue or ever was anything but a coincidence but I recall years ago some systems that experienced sudden power loss with SSD would reboot and the SSD would be 'missing'... not sure if that was firmware, plp, or crappy controllers back in the day. Anyone?

 

[coolrunnings82]

Yep Crucial M4! Happened to me twice in a row. Thank God for RMAs...

 

[mstone]

What value is PLP for the OS/Boot drive. I get it for a ZIL/SLOG, but that's an off topic discussion for this thread.

The value is that an incredibly ill timed power failure doesn't keep the system from coming back up.