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SSD considered for small business pc

B

bupkus

Diamond Member
I don't come into town often enough to provide tech support for my old client so I suggested a small SSD for reliability. Which would you suggest for 32GB or more? Speed is ok but reliability is more important. Price? I don't think it matters that much to my client but since the size is small how much can it be?

Installed will be windows 7 64-bit, Office 2007 (Word and Excel) and a small childcare sw package with a small database.
 
"small business pc...
don't come into town often enough tp provide tech support...
for reliability...
Price? I don't think it matters that much...
windows 7 64-bit, Office 2007... small database"

Office doesn't require SSD yet...
For reliability, go with two high-end / low-capacity drives in a RAID 1 configuration or maybe even three of them in a RAID 5.
Why low capacity you ask?
Fewer spinning platters generally equates to lower temperatures.

Of course it goes without saying that regular backups are happening... Preferably to an off-site location.
 
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I might stay away from the RAID in this situation and have to agree that any Intel drive would be ideal. The Intel drives show better visible performance than any other for the cost and size they are seeking.
 
Talking about SSD lifetime without looking at relevant specs is kind of pointless. When talking about SSD lifetime the points at hand are MLC/SLC, 54/34/25nm generation NAND, total erase blocks, erase block size, average controller write amplification and other specs. Only with this data can we say something about the endurance of the SSD.

Also, controller and firmware bugs are an important part of the reliability of SSDs; the young controller market still needs some maturing to do. I believe both SandForce and Micron has lost/corrupted data in some circumstances, meaning you would want a proven design like the Intel for anything important (business).

People who say a harddrive is more reliable than an Intel SSD; perhaps in their dreams. People who never had a HDD fail on them might overestimate their actual reliability. And people confuse technical lifetime of SSDs due to exceeded write cycles with reliability; those two have nothing to do with eachother.
 
sub.mesa said:
People who say a harddrive is more reliable than an Intel SSD; perhaps in their dreams.
People who never had a HDD fail on them might overestimate their actual reliability.
Click to expand...
Some of those people have actually had a HD or two fail on them... go figure...
 
Blain said:
Of course it goes without saying that regular backups are happening... Preferably to an off-site location.
Click to expand...
This computer doesn't have internet access. Long ago we decided it wasn't needed. And for the sake of security a separate computer would be used for general web use should the owner want to check up on sport team scores, etc.

I like the read of the X25-V by Intel. Sure, it doesn't seem to have the speed of the latest OCZ products Anand wrote about but it has a longer and perhaps more proven track record, the size is adequate and the price is less than others.
I think I'll order one this next week.

On another point, Jan. 12, 2009 I ordered and installed an OCZ Solid Series 30GB SSD for a very light weight PC used as a clock-in station for my nephew's childcare center.
I believe it's running Windows XP with just enough files installed (the software vendor calls it 'workstation' software) to run some clock-in software. It works by executing a program on another "server" pc which has a shared folder. Pretty simple low-end stuff but it works.
My point is, from the get-go my nephew said it seems to run slow. Well, quite honestly I never did any special alignment which I still don't know how to do. As for life expectancy of this drive, you would probably agree that there are next to zero writes involved.
Would this be the ideal use of that old Solid Series SSD?

Next point, the SSD I'm shopping for now would be on the "server" side of this arrangement and is used for all other office needs.
 
SLC is about 700gb a day and MLC is what like 70gb a day. you can do the math - most people don't even write 70gb a day.

If you want to have more success - underformat the drive (use 60gb instead the whole 80gb) it will help with life of the MLC.

I guarantee you like 3TB drives - MLC in SMB is going to be big this year. when i say SMB i mean sub-1000 business storage array use. just watch.
 
Personally I think we are getting carried away here and way out of the league of what he is requesting. I believe it is simply a small home based business and he has detailed the software. Any ssd would do although a simple X25v would be ideal for what is described.

Also please understand the speed that advertised speed in SSDs is a bit of a bluff. The advertised speeds are seldomly used and, in fact, its the small 4Kb reads and writes that are so very important for visible improvement.

There is an article here which describes in detail what you should be looking for with respect to the ssd speed scenario.
 
Emulex said:
SLC is about 700gb a day and MLC is what like 70gb a day. you can do the math - most people don't even write 70gb a day.

If you want to have more success - underformat the drive (use 60gb instead the whole 80gb) it will help with life of the MLC.

I guarantee you like 3TB drives - MLC in SMB is going to be big this year. when i say SMB i mean sub-1000 business storage array use. just watch.
Click to expand...

Sorry to say, but I really don't understand both what you are trying to tell me and indeed what you are talking about.

700gb/day and 70gb/day are metrics for what action? Decay? Usage limits?
 
SLC drives (enterprise x25-e) and others are designed to take 700gb of writes per day for 5 years.

MLC drives iirc 70gb (1/10th) for 3 years or so.

ssd has counter for how much written on them so you can keep tabs.

Like a harddrive they give you guidelines on how long it should last - but you know it could go either way.

the larger the drive (more chips) the longer the life for the most part since there is more spread on wear leveling.

Go for it man! have good backups that work!
 
Emulex said:
SLC drives (enterprise x25-e) and others are designed to take 700gb of writes per day for 5 years.

MLC drives iirc 70gb (1/10th) for 3 years or so.
Click to expand...
Actually the official Intel numbers were more something like 100gb/day for 5 years for MLC drives and that's a rather conservative estimate. If you go with around 10k writes/cell for MLC flash and the given write amplification, etc. you get some much larger numbern..
 
A friend of mine just got an Intel SSD, and it lasted two weeks. I plan on sticking to regular hard drives for awhile longer.

Has there been outside testing of MTBF for the various SSDs?
 
BladeVenom said:
A friend of mine just got an Intel SSD, and it lasted two weeks. I plan on sticking to regular hard drives for awhile longer.

Has there been outside testing of MTBF for the various SSDs?
Click to expand...


thats cool how did it die? what did it do? just curious, im sure there are failures nothing is immune to that

check out some newegg reviews there are 4 people that had it last less than a week as well, but that is out of how many people? mine have been running a while now and fast as day one. fingers crossed
 
killster1 said:
thats cool how did it die? what did it do? just curious, im sure there are failures nothing is immune to that
Click to expand...

It just stopped working. Windows couldn't find it, neither could the motherboard. I even tried hooking it to my computer through a USB adapter.

Sure everything fails, but that failed faster than any hard drive I've seen. I've seen a few websites switch to SSDs only to have problems. From what little I've seen, they seem less reliable than a good old fashioned hard drive. I'd like to see some independent testing of reliability.
 
BladeVenom said:
It just stopped working. Windows couldn't find it, neither could the motherboard. I even tried hooking it to my computer through a USB adapter.

Sure everything fails, but that failed faster than any hard drive I've seen. I've seen a few websites switch to SSDs only to have problems. From what little I've seen, they seem less reliable than a good old fashioned hard drive. I'd like to see some independent testing of reliability.
Click to expand...

Google studies have cleared up any misconception as to how really bad many hard drives really are. I know of alot that have failed for no reason over the years. I dont think anyone who has been around computers for any reason doesnt know of at least one corrupted HD experience.

Now to add, SSDs of all makes have suffered growing pains as well. There have been a few Intels fail just like anything else but its no different with any technology.

The difference is right now the SSD is like the Rotty bite whereas a HDD failure is like a Bijou nip.

Every is sitting waiting for the failures of new technology which is why its printed each and every time. Do you think anyone would read an article if a Velociraptor was defective? Nope... Growing Pains.
 
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