WTB: SLOG SDD (ex. Intel S3500 80GB)

[raiderj]

I'm looking to put a SLOG in my FreeNAS server to help speed up transactions on a ESXi NFS share. I've been primarily looking at the Intel S3500 80GB as a likely candidate since it's cheap. I have other SSDs, but none with full power loss protection.

If you have a decent SLOG device for sale, let me know. I might consider other devices as I have a couple free PCI-e slots, but from what I've seen the price is more than I'm willing to pay.

 

[MiniKnight]

I'd suggest getting a s3700 100GB. Like:
$109 - INTEL 100GB 2.5" SATA SSD DC S3700 SSDSC2BA100G3 Solid State Drive Used
or $110 with a Best Offer feature: Intel DC S3700 Series 100GB 2.5 inch SATA3 Solid State Drive,enterprise class

Better write endurance and the S3500 80GB is a very low performance member of that family.

 

[raiderj]

How big of a difference in performance? Just wondering if it'd be worth spending about twice as much.

 

[T_Minus]

S3500 - 80gb
Intel® SSD DC S3500 Series (80GB, 2.5in SATA 6Gb/s, 20nm, MLC) Specifications
70,000 read IOPs
7,000 write IOPs
340/100 Read/Write MB/s

S3700 100gb
Intel® SSD DC S3700 Series (100GB, 2.5in SATA 6Gb/s, 25nm, MLC) Specifications
75,000 read IOPs
17,000 write IOPs
500/200 Read/Write MB/s

Now, IMHO, the 200GB S3700 is the "sweet spot" since it performs like the larger capacity.

Intel® SSD DC S3700 Series (200GB, 2.5in SATA 6Gb/s, 25nm, MLC) Specifications
75,000 read IOPs
32,000 write IOPs
500/365 Read/Write MB/s

200GB S3700 -- Seem to be rare on ebay right now, but in the past 12 months I've purchased dozens, and know others here who have too, they usually float only 20-30$ more than 100GB when they're available.

 

[whitey]

I got a slew of s3700 200gb'ers....hmmmm wonder from who? :-D

They are NICE but I won't let mine go for anything near what people seem to wanna pay for them currently. They are indeed a 'sweet spot' drive for specific use cases but no one wants to pay the piper anymore. Not w/ $119 eMLC 400GB HGST drives fallin' outta' the sky recently :-D haha

 

[T_Minus]

I think I have a couple more Dell/HP branded ones I need to sell/trade for Intel ones actually

 

[whitey]

You know the drill...send em' my way :-D

All your computer wares are belong to me

6 OEM, 2 dell, 2 hp here.

 

[raiderj]

I've seen the Dell ones on ebay, how are they different than the OEM Intel ones? Just a "certified" firmware instead?

 

[whitey]

I've seen the Dell ones on ebay, how are they different than the OEM Intel ones? Just a "certified" firmware instead?

Annoyingly stripped/masked away reporting in intel ssd tool. Seems like SMART only plays nice on 'vendors' ctrls. Others may have more issues, to me I use em in ZFS boxes so it doesn't bother me that much w/ the endurance/HET used in the s3700's but I do prefer the OEM ones for sure.

 

[T_Minus]

I've seen the Dell ones on ebay, how are they different than the OEM Intel ones? Just a "certified" firmware instead?

Annoyingly stripped/masked away reporting in intel ssd tool. Seems like SMART only plays nice on 'vendors' ctrls. Others may have more issues, to me I use em in ZFS boxes so it doesn't bother me that much w/ the endurance/HET used in the s3700's but I do prefer the OEM ones for sure.

Exactly this. I can't get enough data. However, I too have a handful on hand for SLOG devices or other testing, etc... the Intel S3700 Array I'm testing for deployment is all Intel non-vendor specific so I can pull data, and monitor each drive.

What's really funny... the HP or Dell "branded" drives are often selling for MORE on ebay, and sell quicker!

And to stay on track...

I've paid anywhere from $90 to $190 for a S3700 on ebay. (Used and New in that mix)

It just depended how long I could wait for a drive, and the month... the last couple months have been pretty damn dry on the 200GB S3700 in general

 

[Patrick]

The other thing you might want to look at other than the speed of the S3700 is the write endurance, especially if you are getting a used drive. A few good benchmarking sessions can put a big dent in a S3500's life but much harder with the S3700 having 10x or more the write endurance.

Ballpark because I do not have the numbers with me on the road but:
80GB * 0.3DPWD = 24GB/ day for the S3500 80GB
100GB * 5 DWPD = 500GB/ day for the S3700 100GB

24GB/ day is not too hard to do on a nice size NAS w/ several clients. 500GB/day is more than most home users will ever write.

 

[raiderj]

My specific use case is to have the SLOG for an ESXi pool, 4TB or so, for various virtual machines. Don't expect heavy usage, but I'm definitely thinking that the S3700 may be the better option. Sounds like it would last at least twice as long as the S3500, so would be a worthwhile investment.

Question: To track the life left in an S3700, I would need it to be an OEM Intel drive so that I can run the toolbox against it?

 

[Marsh]

If you have OEM S3700, you won't need to worried about life. Usually there would be plenty.

Few months earlier, brought 10 or may be 12 x 200gb from a Ebay Seller for $80 each.