Regarding SSDs and enterprises

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
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http://www.mysqlperformanceblo...and-lost-transactions/

"Running this test with default XFS setting I saw SSD was doing 50 writes / s, this is something so forced me to check results several times - come on, it's SSD, we should have much more IO there. Investigations put me into barries/nobarriers parameters and with mounting -o nobarrier I got 5300 writes / s. Nice difference, and this is something we want from SSD.

Now to test durability I do plug off power from SSD card and check how many transactions are really stored - and there is second bumper - I do not see several last N commited transactions.

So now time to turn off write-cache on SSD - all transactions are in place now, but write speed is only 1200 writes / s, which is comparable with RAID 10"

So what he is saying is that the X25-E, will outperform the traditional RAID 10 setup with similar price, but that's with the write cache enabled which due to data loss(they tested it) they won't enable it and the performance will be similar in the end.

That's bad news. This means X25-M is really for average student users and X25-E is for extreme PC users, and there is no server alternative in the SSD world yet. Makes sense though because X25-E is SATA.
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
39,752
20,326
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I was under the impression the M version was for lappys and student type users, while the E version is the faster version. I got this impression by looking at the data sheets on Intel's website. I don't see the problem with it.

Also, the server world uses SATA for some things, you will see more SCSI/SAS, but SATA solutions are out there. So he compares the E to a RAID 10? What system admin in their right mind would use a single drive and hope for the best....none of them. If an admin does choose this, he/she needs to be fired. Putting all you hope in one drive, regardless of the technology, is just asking for trouble in terms of downtime and data loss.

So, in actuality, a server alternative would be a RAID solution utilizing SSD's. Unless, as stated, you don't value the job you have.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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Exact problem for that is again price. This is what he says: "In this case RAID 10 on 8 disks + BBU is cheaper and gives much better results."

"So now time to turn off write-cache on SSD - all transactions are in place now, but write speed is only 1200 writes / s, which is comparable with RAID 10"

Sure, RAID setup with the X25-E will outperform the RAID 10 configuration with the 8 disks. But while the performance is 2x, the price is also 2x. It defeats the purpose of trying to lower the price by having an SSD because in reality they need to have the write cache off to prevent data loss and that puts the performance down to the level of the similarly priced HDD RAID configuration.