localzuk Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 I've been using a Non-Trim SSD on our Sims server for nearly 3 years now. No slowdown yet. [ATTACH=CONFIG]15603[/ATTACH] 4TB data written is absolutely tiny. So, that is a *very* low write system in my view.
ICTLTD Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 This is totally off topic. I work for a private company not a school (boo!), I want to go about things the right way on here. I do not want to be a spammer and will enjoy the tech debates (like this) but would like to know who I would need to contact to look at sponsorship of the site. I had emailed web admin a couple of times but I presume that is spammed to hell anyway. I would be a liar if if I said some of the opportunities on here were not of interest, but also having been dealing in education for over 15 years I want to go about things the right way. So unfortunately that will still mean you get my bad opinions on hardware matters.
Willott Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Excellent point. I'm thinking of RAID from the point of view of building large logical volumes as much as failure. For our high IOP loads I really need a replicated system - but that too would be subject to the same write lifetime. This would be a case of setting up system monitoring of SMART data, giving an alert when the "usable life" attribute drops below a certain level (I'd go for 25% just to be safe, maybe higher).
Arthur Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Performance degrades severely without TRIM. Some SSDs (Kingston SSDNow E100 for example) do not support TRIM at all and rely on having aggressive GC routines, so it really depends on the SSD. 1
Willott Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 This is totally off topic. I work for a private company not a school (boo!), I want to go about things the right way on here. I do not want to be a spammer and will enjoy the tech debates (like this) but would like to know who I would need to contact to look at sponsorship of the site. I had emailed web admin a couple of times but I presume that is spammed to hell anyway. I would be a liar if if I said some of the opportunities on here were not of interest, but also having been dealing in education for over 15 years I want to go about things the right way. So unfortunately that will still mean you get my bad opinions on hardware matters. Off topic, ban him, ban him I'd try PMing @Dos_Box as a starting point... if he doesn't know, he'll know a man who does 1
ICTLTD Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Off topic, ban him, ban him I'd try PMing @Dos_Box as a starting point... if he doesn't know, he'll know a man who does Cheers. But on SMART I would go for Below 50%, from experience they start running like a dog at that level.
tmcd35 Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 Yep, but when do we then break from - oh, we may as well just use SAS because that's what's always been used in this situation... as more people start to use SSDs and as SSD technology progresses (to be honest, I think we're at tipping point now), the price of SSDs will come down, and the other benefits of SSDs will start to be more apparent (power savings add up over time, less noise and vibration, less heat released so less cooling required). I think on the desktop the break is now. The OS drive on a server, the break is probably now. For the rest... Well I'd personally like to see a couple of more things happen first: 1) RAID support 2) Longer Warrantys 3) A couple of decent reviews that say "this drive won't die after x number of writes) 4) Prices to drop a little more. To be honest, we're almost there. I can't see magnetic disks still being popular in 5 years or even available in 10 years. I just don't buy the argument that these drives are so uber reliable that you don't need RAID, besides that's whats back ups are for. No, I like my RAID security blanket, thank you. 1
zag Posted October 17, 2012 Author Posted October 17, 2012 (edited) 4TB data written is absolutely tiny. So, that is a *very* low write system in my view. Exactly my point. Both SQL and file servers dont read/write much data at all. Our Sims server is used everyday for registration in a school for 1000 pupils. The actual DB size is over 2gb now. I doubt if it goes over 100mb of data actually written a day. Our file server is less than 2gb from my 24hr test since yesterday. Edited October 17, 2012 by zag 1
Willott Posted October 17, 2012 Posted October 17, 2012 1) RAID support - See @Arthur's point above 2) Longer Warrantys - most decent ones tend to have 3-5yr warranties (same as HDDs) 3) A couple of decent reviews that say "this drive won't die after x number of writes) - trying to find some reviews currently... manufacturers are being more forward about this now. 4) Prices to drop a little more. - prices are dropping all the time (see ebuyer's £30 60GB SSD last week, and someone reported a 120GB cheap as well), Intel 520 is around the 50p/GB mark as well RAID, either stick some SSDs in RAID (see point 1) or use some network technology to "RAID" over network.
zag Posted October 18, 2012 Author Posted October 18, 2012 Thanks to all the advice on this thread I have decided to go ahead with this. Current plan is: 2 x Dell PowerEdge R320 with 600GB Intel 320 SSDs. Running Hyper-V + DFS 1 x Dell PowerEdge R320 with 300GB OS Drive + 600GB Intel 320 SSD. Running Hyper-V + Backupexec 2010 + Veeam 1 x Netgear GS724T gigabit switch Hopefully that gives me complete redundancy for our entire file system and 600GB to play with. Our current file server is around 220GB so this should give us loads of extra space for the future. We currently also have a Video and Audio server. I will keep this hard disk based for now. And here is the first pic of the change over. Bye bye seagate "enterprise" constellation. I won't miss your random failures!!
zag Posted October 18, 2012 Author Posted October 18, 2012 This is the most fun I've had in years setting up a server. Just copied a 4GB .iso file from one server to the other. Took 15 seconds!! 150mb/s transfer. Wow!
zag Posted October 23, 2012 Author Posted October 23, 2012 (edited) Got the parts for actual file server today and built the VM. Oh my word I'm in speed heaven!! 117 MB/second!! Our current file server has never been above 20 Can't wait to see how long our normal 13hr backup takes at this weekend. Does anyone know how to get the aero interface on Windows 2008 R2? I've installed the desktop experience but can only really set backgrounds so far. Edited October 23, 2012 by zag
FN-GM Posted October 23, 2012 Posted October 23, 2012 Got the parts for actual file server today and built the VM. Oh my word I'm in speed heaven!! 117 MB/second!! Our current file server has never been above 20 Can't wait to see how long our normal 13hr backup takes at this weekend. [ATTACH=CONFIG]15686[/ATTACH] Does anyone know how to get the aero interface on Windows 2008 R2? I've installed the desktop experience but can only really set backgrounds so far. thats all you do, i should imagine the server doesn't have a good enough graphics card to do it.
mrbios Posted October 23, 2012 Posted October 23, 2012 Does anyone know how to get the aero interface on Windows 2008 R2? Simple answer for any server that isn't a terminalserver (tbh i haven't even bothered on that front myself): You don't.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now