If you are in the market
for a solid-state drive (SSD) to improve overall storage system performance,
you must first have an understanding of the vast amounts of different SSD
features and characteristics, so you can select the drives that best suit your
environment and applications. However, even seasoned system administrators are,
at times, bewildered at the swarm of ever-evolving SSDs on the market. Despite
knowing that SSDs offer high data transfer speeds, some may think that the
storage capacity is too low, or believe that SSDs are too expensive, not
balancing the improvements and value SSDs could present in terms of faster
business results or higher productivity.
Enterprises across
virtually every industry and sectors understand the potential that data offers.
To leverage the value of their data, they are using various computations,
algorithms, machine learning and analytics to unlock patterns that provide
valuable insights. In order to capitalize on these opportunities, it can
sometimes become quite tedious to choose the right storage device for your
system. It is important to note that extreme big data and fast data workloads
demand a sound storage infrastructure with specific capabilities. Therefore, in
order to narrow down on a suitable SSD storage device, a checklist can make the
process easier: -
1.Form Factor
This defines where the SSD
fits, whether it is possible to replace it without powering down the server,
and how many SSDs can be packed into a chassis. Typically, for SSDs, such as
Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN640 NVMe, the form factor of
2.5 inch is the most common. Such drives are hot-swappable and can fit 24 such
drives on most 2U servers. While M.2 and Add-In Card are other common form
factors and offer higher bandwidth and power profile than 2.5-inch drives.
2.Interface
There are three types of
SSD interfaces: SATA, SAS and NVMe and each has its own set of
applications. SATA with its legacy protocol optimized for rotating media (HDDs)
offers a maximum transfer rate of 600 MB/s. Whereas, SAS drives, such as Western
Digital Ultrastar SAS series SSD, offers a more robust enterprise feature
set with higher data transfer rates. On other hand, NVMe Drives, such as Western Digital Ultrastar NVME SSDs are
designed as an ultra-high-speed connection interface for near-memory applications,
thereby delivering unprecedented low latency compared to the other two
interfaces.
3.Endurance
Each SSD warranty comes
with a limited amount of erase and write cycles for data over its lifetime.
Hence, the selection of the SSD will depend on its intended application. For
instance, choosing a high endurance SSD for a read-mostly application will
needlessly incur a higher cost. Whereas, choosing a low endurance SSD for a
high-write workload can lead to a premature drive failure.
4.Error handling & data protection
In comparison to consumer
SSDs, enterprise SSDs offer better Data Protection Safeguards. Unexpected
events such as power failure or flash errors can corrupt the data. With
features such as NAND error handling, power-failure protection and end-to-end
data path protection, enterprise SSDs make sure there is minimal possibility of
data loss, with state-of-the-art data encryption.
5.NAND
The most common type of
flash memory, NAND is a type of non-volatile storage technology that are built
on flash cells and do not require any power to store data. These flash cells
range from single-level – storing one bit per cell – to quad-level cell that
stores 4 bits of data in a single NAND cell. The multi-level cell (MLC)
technology allows 2 bits per cell, doubling the storage capacity of a single
NAND chip. This TLC is the most prevalent in enterprise-class SSDs and delivers
reliable performance and endurance.
6.Performance
By now we know that SSDs
are fast, making them the preferred choice for data storage. However, measuring
the performance of an SSD does not follow a one-size-fits-all approach. SSD
performance depends on the specific workloads running on them. Transfer speed
and latency are the most important metrics for SSD application performance.
Latency is the time taken by the drive to read or write data – a lower latency
is always better.
7.Power and Overprovisioning
SSDs can be tuned up to optimize
power consumption and enhance drive performance. When deployed in a data centre
rack, enterprise SSDs can be configured to consume less power, which result in
reducing energy consumption of the storage system, often at the cost of
performance. In addition, enterprise SSDs also have user-accessible space that
vary from 1% to 20% less than the total amount of flash on drive. This can be
used to increase usable write performance but not read performance.
Conclusion
Enterprise SSDs, especially
NVMe SSDs, are an excellent choice for intensive workloads, such as highly
transactional databases, web streaming, and dense environments like VDI.
With a clear understanding of all the important details that shape your
requirement, you can make a much better choice while you shop.