Samsung EVO vs Pro

[Akanox]

Hi,

Im building a test server on a Dell R620, and planning on using either Samsung Evo er Samsung Pro - but cant decide which one.

Im going to use 6 disks in Raid 5, to have enough storage available.
Ive read a bit about the differences between the EVO and the Pro disk, and it seems that if i dont write more than 80GB to each disk every day, it will last for 5 years (simple calculation).

The server will run 25-40 Virtual Machines - a mix of workload (Exchange, SQL, TS and Web servers).

Is it worth spending approx 55$ (330$ in total) on the Pro series instead of the Evo?

 

[i386]

With 25+ vms I wouldn't consider evo or pro drives.
These drives don't have power loss protection and their performance is bad once the cache is filled up and trim/garbage collection can't kick in.

 

[Rand__]

Haven't used the Pro, but the Evo is crap for vmware. Have (had) a datastore on it and after a few minutes of activity (copying to it/vmotion) it slowed to a crawl.
For one or two low activity vms - fine, but for many/lot of activity - nope.

 

[Evan]

If you want sata at least get some pm863a's rather than evo or pro.

 

[Stephan]

Cheap consumer SSDs run into temperature problems after a while and have to throttle, else they would go out in a blaze of smoke and fire. That is also why you should never pry off the label off of Samsung M2 PCBs because there is a thin copper heatspreader below the label. Helps somewhat.

Exchange, SQL, Terminal Services and Web is quite some load. I can only recommend to invest in either Intel S3xxx series with power loss protection or similar Samsung PM/SM863, preferably SM. You can buy e.g. an Intel S3520 for below 0.5 EUR per GB incl. taxes. TBW under 1 petabyte over 5 years is imho asking for trouble.

 

[Akanox]

Hi,

Thanks for all the answers.
Im currently using 2x Intel 540 disks as tiering, and a Raid 5 on 5 7,2k disks.
Its performing okay, but with 20-30 VMs its starting to go a bit slow.

As mentioned its a test enviroment, so the Exchange server only holds 1 active user - so does the SQL server - so its not a full blown installation.

Ive looked at what you recommended, but since its a test enviroment, and the server should last for 2-3 years, i wont spend twice the amount for enterprise disks.
I dont care about powerloss - its a testing enviroment, and there is a active veeam backup.
If i had to choose - would it then be worth spending 300$ on the Pro disks instead of the evo?

Thanks in advance

 

[i386]

Both are consumer ssds, they have similar results in different benchmarks. The pro has longer warranty (10years?).

 

[Rand__]

Given how crappy the Evos where in my situation I'd go for pro But haven't used them so no real idea whether they are better at all

 

[Akanox]

Hi,

Thanks again.
Based on the posts, i believe i shouldent use the EVO disks for the server.
I will consider this again, and might use the Pro disks

 

[Evan]

Samsung comparison, amazon today...
2tb 850 pro $350
960gb Pm863a $430

And if your talking any smaller sizes them for sure the enterprise disks are better.

Used an option ?

 

[Akanox]

Hi,

Im talking about 512GB Pro disks or the 500GB Evo disks.
If the enviroment can run on a 7,2K R5 with R1 SSD tiering, then 6x512GB Pro disks in Raid5 should be enough.

 

[T_Minus]

I wouldn't ever use EVO or PRO.

I know people who've tried 24x PRO and they still crap their pants and slow to a crawl.

I know people who use a handful for a SMALL business (PRO) and we're talking storage of images, videos, etc... and it will slow to a crawl if 2-3 people are moving files around... absolutely 0 'work' is done on this file system it's just for storage.


If you're needing 5x512GB capacity and the 512GB PRO cost $260 then that's just silly.
You can buy Intel S3500 800GB for sometimes under $200 if not within your range still too.
You can buy Intel S3700 800GB for $200-260 if you watch ebay.

There's absolutely no way I would spend as much or more $$ for a consumer drive instead of an Intel S3xxx series SSD, especially ones that are higher capacity, higher reserve space, plp, and lower latency than Samsung.

 

[pricklypunter]

@Kristian Leth I have a single EVO as my datastore in ESXi, I have 6 VM's running 24/7, plus I spin up the odd other one or two when I need to do something specific. I can tell you for sure that it only just copes with this load and I'm doing nothing that would tax it in any way. I also have a 512GB Pro in my laptop and I am able to slow that down significantly with just a few large file transfers. I would say if you plan on running anything more than 6 light weight VM's at the same time, you will be sorely disappointed in the performance of either the EVO or the PRO. Everyone here has told you to use enterprise rated disks for good reason, sure they are more expensive new, but you can pick them up very lightly used for less money than the PRO costs new. What matters here is that the enterprise rated disks have lower latency and can sustain large read/ write mixed loads without choking on it. Spend your money wisely

 

[Logan]

@Kristian Leth Check prices of Intel S3700 on eBay. They've recently been available at $130-$150 for 400GB. If that's enough capacity for you, there won't be any problem with drive performance.

 

[marcoi]

anyway to test how bad a set of evo drives will get? I have 4 x 250GB left over that i plan to use in some form as cache for 4 spinner hdd. I want to test how they would be before i setup a new (to me) server that will act as my file storage for two other esxi nodes. (i'm still playing with how to build out that storage - freenas, raid card, etc.)

 

[i386]

If you want to test them in windows try microsoft diskspeed with the : TechNet Diskspd Utility: A Robust Storage Testing Tool (superseding SQLIO)

 

[marcoi]

If you want to test them in windows try microsoft diskspeed with the : TechNet Diskspd Utility: A Robust Storage Testing Tool (superseding SQLIO)

I grab that tool to test storage out, is there a particular test I should be trying out?

 

[i386]

I would say some sequential read/write tests and random 4k with 70% reads & 30% writes with the "-h" paramter (disables all caches).

 

[i386]

I would say some sequential read/write tests and random 4k with 70% reads & 30% writes with the "-h" paramter (disables all caches).

 

[BackupProphet]

The EVO / PRO and almost all other consumer SSD's also have crap write performance. I have a Samsung 750 EVO that actually is just slightly faster than spinning rust for sync writes. Compared to the good old Intel 320 which is 20 timer faster for SYNC writes. Imagine that! The problem is, reviews of SSD's are just bullshit, they are optimized for ideal conditions, not normal use.