January 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm
We are planing to upgrade the hardware hosting our SQL server. Does someone have any information of using Solide State Disks (SSD)?
Thanks
January 31, 2012 at 7:03 am
Personally, I'd be cautious about SSD due to its limited Write lifespan. I'd look at what you doing to be using it for and if its a high write database I'd avoid it and going for something like FusionIO.
January 31, 2012 at 10:25 am
With modern (last 18months) and the successful implementation of TRIM in SSDs I wouldn't worry too much about their lifespan.
SSDs provide excellent performance, however they are costly. I would stick with their use for only your most volatile files (you would need to perform tests to see if this is TempDB, data files or certain log files).
SSD provides the most performance when it comes to random read/write activities, and so frequently you won't see much advantage when using that above 15K RAID10 drives.
Like everything, mileage varies. You need to know and understand your environment. See if storage performance is actually a problem for you, and then evaluate the cost/benefit to see if they work for you.
You might want to consider looking at something like a 3PAR SAN which will automatically move LUNs between layers of storage (SATA/SAS/SSD) to provide the highest level of performance to your most heavily used disks.
February 1, 2012 at 7:53 am
Thanks for your help.
February 1, 2012 at 11:19 am
They totally ROCK, but you MUST get enterprise-grade ones. I think FusionIO rules that roost right now, and for good reason. I have been recommending those to clients for several years now with very good results.
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
February 1, 2012 at 11:32 am
I tend to agree with TheSQLGuru, make sure you get enterprise grade SSDs.
February 1, 2012 at 11:52 am
This is for a data warehouse. My concern is the lifespan of the SSDs disks. As of now we don't have any SSDs in house, but it is something we might want to use to improve our loading and reporting processes.
Thoughts about SSDs used for a data warehouse? I don't know FusionIO, good to investigate?
Thanks all for your help,
February 1, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Rem70Rem (2/1/2012)
This is for a data warehouse. My concern is the lifespan of the SSDs disks. As of now we don't have any SSDs in house, but it is something we might want to use to improve our loading and reporting processes.Thoughts about SSDs used for a data warehouse? I don't know FusionIO, good to investigate?
Thanks all for your help,
As mentioned, you really need to know where your pain is before swapping to SSDs. The volume of data in a warehouse usually detracts from SSDs because of the cost. I've seen them used for the TempDB in those cases though for when the optimizer sorts in there and things like that for larger queries.
FusionIO is the top of the line SSDs right now. They're incredibly expensive, but they're quality. You wouldn't think to buy one for your home PC for example. I would definately investigate them, so you know what you're comparing everyone else against.
As mentioned, lifespan has improved. Originally if you needed the speed you considered it a maintenance cost (and made damned sure your backups were good if you used it on data files). These days I'd not consider it as much of a hinderance, just something to be aware of and keep a swap or two available for when it happens.
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February 1, 2012 at 3:17 pm
We've experimented with local Enterprise SATA SSD's here, starting with TempDB (Data and Log sharing SSD RAID sets), to extremely good effect. So far, we've been using them over a year, with no issues; with a truly modern RAID controller, they smoke SAS disks. With a 2 year old RAID controller, in certain particular cases (large sequential writes, as it turns out) the controller is the bottleneck even on SAS disks. We've seen >1TB/s throughput on random reads of 64KB blocks (extent size), starting at 8 outstanding IOs.
Note also that the traditional RAID 1/10 vs RAID 5/50 advice does not necessarily apply in all cases anymore; run extensive SQLIO tests on your particular machine, then set things up based on your own configuration's results.
Watch the warranty period for them, and consider data destruction before you start; while platter disks often fail slowly, allowing at least partial wipes (and both industrial degaussers and smashing them until glass slivers fall out is reasonable), SSD's often fail instantly; if they have protected (financial, health care, criminal justice, etc.) data on them that you can't wipe, what are you going to do with it? Will your vendor commit to replacing it and wiping the old data for you/destroying it?
February 1, 2012 at 3:19 pm
life is more of an issue with writes than reads. If you are using these mostly for reads, I wouldn't be as worried as if you use them with lots of writes (tempdb). Craig has some good info above, but make sure you understand your read v write levels.
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