6 ms·

Revisiting Solid State Hard Drives

93 points by alexandros 16y ago

newsisan 16y ago
I would disagree about not needing >2GB of ram, but other than that - SSDs rock.
- someone_here 16y ago
  On my Ubuntu machine, I rarely use more than 1GB (apart from the disk cache, of course, which can fill all remaining memory. Note: windows only has an 8MB cache)
  - ergo98 16y ago
    Can you qualify the "Windows only has an 8MB cache" bit? Of course on Microsoft Windows it uses all available memory, quite effectively. If you have copious RAM you get far-better-than-SSD "read speeds" when reopening applications (which is a typical behavior, cycling between a small universe of applications), presuming your computing lifestyle is that your computer is never turned off...e.g. you put it to S3 sleep during off time.
  - jerf 16y ago
    On my Kubuntu machine with 4GB, I rarely use more than 1.5GB of RAM, and that's counting the disk cache which will grow to fill all available space. Unless I run a VM, the system literally has no use for half my RAM, except for dual-channel access.
- ssmoot 16y ago
  Running VMs for testing during development (ie: an IE6 VM, IE7 VM, etc) are the major driver for us. Outside of that, my work machine has Chrome, Mail.app, Terminal and Textmate open generally so 2GB is fine without the VMs. My home machine is the previous generation, top of the line iMac (3GHz, 2GB) and is often noticeably sluggish. It looks like iTunes is responsible for a bit under 200MB. I really don't know what the issue is though to be honest, but it feels like a 4GB upgrade would get it over the hump.
stuff4ben 16y ago
Was surprised to hear OSX doesn't support TRIM. Does anyone know why? I was gettin all excited about getting a new SSD for my MBP, but now I'm not so sure...
- js2 16y ago
  Order a http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extr... and don't worry about it.
  - misterbwong 16y ago
    Just as a followup, this OWC mercury isn't the only one that does built in garbage collection. From what I can tell, most newer generation SSD's do it. While it's not as good as TRIM support, it's a reasonable approximation. As a side note for anyone else considering buying an SSD, there are rumors flying around that Intel is getting set to re-release their SSD line with a smaller micron next month. This should cut costs and increase speeds in time for the Christmas season.
- Perceval 16y ago
  The groundwork for TRIM has existed in OS X since 10.5. For some reason, Apple is waiting to enable it. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59299-Something-like-Wiper-for-OS-X#post409366 http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59299... http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59512-Wiper.exe-and-Boot-Camp-for-OS-X&p=410647#post410647 http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59512... http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2213830 http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2213830 http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/14/apple_laying_groundwork_for_trim_support_in_future_ssd_based_macs.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/14/apple_laying_g...
  - bryanh 16y ago
    Steve Jobs: "Thanks to everyone for coming today. Today is a big day. Today we release an update for Mac OS X that quadruples SSD performance and furthermore, all Macs will come standard with a SSD hybrid... etc..."
gjm11 16y ago
There's not really very much revisiting, as opposed to repetition. What's new: (1) Atwood recommends the Crucial RealSSD C300 (citing a couple of reviews). (2) Seagate have a reasonably priced hybrid SSD/spinning-rust drive, the Momentus XT, which according to AnandTech has good performance. (It uses 4GB of flash as a read cache; performance is intermediate between typical HD and typical SSD.)
- ergo98 16y ago
  It's a revisited taxation on a gullible readership, many affiliate links there covering all budget points. My PC has both a standard, non-hybrid magnetic disk for volume, and a very, very fast SSD for speed. I use the SSD for development and, humorously, Steam games. It's nice, but given that I have 8GB of RAM and most everything I touch regularly is cached...and I virtually never turn my PC entirely off (S3 sleep is your friend)...outside of database tests it just doesn't make that much of a difference.
  - healsdata 16y ago
    Interesting. I didn't notice the affiliate links the first time and then when I did look, I saw domain names like kqzyfj.com. What purpose does it serve to hide the fact that it's an affiliate link behind a disposable domain name? Are there things like Firefox extensions that would search for "commissionjunction.com" and replace it with non-affiliate links?
    - ergo98 16y ago
      I always look for affiliate links when bloggers suddenly start shilling merchandise outside of their competency. I don't mind when there's an obvious "best prices" DIV at the bottom or wherever, where its purpose and commercial motivation is obvious, but embedded affiliate links just feel....scummy. It's like getting invited to dinner and the host starts an Amway pitch. It colours the entire presentation.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
StavrosK 16y ago
Does anyone know how to get Linux to support TRIM? I just reformatted my SSD and would hate for it to become slower just because of deallocated blocks.
- nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
  According to the linked wikipedia page on the TRIM command, Linux has supported it "since Feb 2010", so I would imagine that anything running the 2.6.32 kernel would correctly utilize that feature if your drive supports it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    The article says that the "latest, greatest Linux kernels should beware", so I don't know what to think :/
    - kevindication 16y ago
      Parse it once more: "Operating systems earlier than Windows 7 and the latest, greatest Linux kernel should beware" Translation: latest, greatest Linux kernels support TRIM.
      - StavrosK 16y ago
        Ah, "earlier than (Win 7 and the latest kernel)", rather than "(earlier than Win 7) and the latest kernel". Thanks, looks like I'm covered, then. EDIT: Apparently, Ubuntu is one version behind TRIM support.
  - limist 16y ago
    Looks like you'd need the Linux 2.6.33 kernel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM#Operating_system_support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM#Operating_system_support http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51105 http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51105
bconway 16y ago
Decent article, but out of date by a few months. None of the drives listed use the newer SandForce controller, which skyrockets sequential writes into the 275 MB/s range, and random writes into 50K IOPS. These drives are where it's at (for home/commodity use, etc).
- Zev 16y ago
  The Crucial RealSSD C300 drive he cites has a theoretical max of 355MB/s. I happen to have have this drive. Writes comes close to 150MB/s at times, after a month and a half of use on OS X (which apparently lacks TRIM). Thats not too shabby. Here's an Xbench result from about a month and a half ago (when I first got it) and one for today (as of 10:36am est): http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=459679&doc2=469412&setCookie=true http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=459679&doc2=469412...
  - catch23 16y ago
    It only has that max if you happen to have a sata 3 compatible host, otherwise you'll be downgraded back to sata 2 and your speed will be comparable to everyone else.
- justinchen 16y ago
  I upgraded my MBP to the Corsair Force 240GB and it's been blazing. Boots in seconds and I'm never waiting for anything anymore.
  - Perceval 16y ago
    I bought a 24GB ExpressCard SSD to use as a boot drive and to launch certain applications from. Gave my MacBook Pro new life, even though it's not a high end SSD.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
seunosewa 16y ago
Did anyone else notice that the performance of the Seagate Momentus XT is awful compared to all the solid state drives? It's only about 20% faster than a regular hard disk drive (the SSDs are about 1000% faster, according to Jeff's own chart). It's an awful, awful recommendation. If you want the performance of a solid state drive, buy a solid state drive.
- AndrewDucker 16y ago
  It's apparently not much faster than a physical drive for random data traffic, but much faster for loading frequently opened files and booting the PC.
  - weaksauce 16y ago
    It's basically like the cache in your cpu now except it's a bit smarter about storing what goes in the flash memory. L1 = the 32MB RAM L2 = 4GB Flash finally the 500GB HD
- Splines 16y ago
  It'd be nice if there existed a thing that acted like the SSD part of the Seagate Momentus XT. That way I could hybrid-ize my existing drives and have greater flexibility for future upgrades.
  - wipt 16y ago
    Check out ARC, ZFS has a implementation of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache
  - wipt 16y ago
    Check out ARC, ZFS has a implementation of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
ssmoot 16y ago
I used to know OCZ as a bit of a shady, benchmark gaming outfit "back in the day". Today however, the SandForce based Vertex II Pro SSDs are amazing. 10K+ IOPs sustained with a genuine database load. 100GB for just over $600. Compare that with STEC Mach8 devices at ten times the price, not super-capacitor backed, and lower throughput. Sure a couple JBODs stacked with 15K RPM disks could do the same for $50K... Now imagine a small single-parity array of four SandForce devices. ;-) For most things, meh. But for databases, it's a real game changer. 2010 is definitely the year SSDs changed everything.
olegk 16y ago
C300 is definitely NOT the fastest SSD drive. There are a few that are much much faster. 1) FusionIO ioXtreme = 670/280 MB/s 2) FusionIO ioDrive = 770/750 MB/s, 140,000 IOPS 3) FusionIO ioDrive Duo = 1500/1500 MB/s, 261,000 IOPS 4) RamSan-440 = 4 GB/s, 600,000 IOPS 5) NextIO vSTOR S100 = 5.5/6 GB/s, 2,200,000 IOPS There are many more listed here: http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fastest.html http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fastest.html
- mey 16y ago
  The RamSan and NextIO aren't internal storage devices, and while the FuisionIO are non-volatile they use the PCI-E bus. A quick glance does not indicate if they are suitable to be booted from. (edit: all that aside from the cost of using any of those solution as a desktop's storage system) (edit2: not condoning the article in anyway)
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  These are either rack-mounted or PCIe drives. If I look at the chart on that page, then the C300 is the fastest 2.5 inch SATA drive. I.e. its the fastest drive that can practically be added to a laptop.
Revisor 16y ago
Tangential: Does anyone have experience with using SSDs in production web/DB servers? Is it viable (yet)?
- MichaelApproved 16y ago
  MySpace replaced all their fast hd's with SSDs about a year ago with good results http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139280/MySpace_replaces_all_server_hard_disks_with_flash_drives http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139280/MySpace_repla...
- danudey 16y ago
  We've got a client with a huge ($15,000) array of SSDs, that he's using to serve out about 9 gigabits of traffic per second from his webserver with one RAID enclosure. Duplicating the performance with normal drives would be cheaper for drives, but take several more enclosures.
bengl3rt 16y ago
I have the 2010 Mac Pro @ 3.33GHz. Going from the WD Caviar Black that it ships with to two SATA SSDs (60GB each, one for Boot and one for Apps) and one PCI SSD (120GB, for scratch work) has been unbelievable. This was a fast computer to begin with, but now I literally never find an application waiting on the disk. Xcode builds that take several minutes on my laptop (copying lots of resources into the bundle, for example) complete in seconds on the new machine. Highly recommended.
mhb 16y ago
I don't understand the reasoning about not wanting to put a relatively expensive SSD in a relatively cheap laptop.
- MartinCron 16y ago
  I've got an expensive SSD in my cheap laptop (free, actually, it was the one they gave me at Microsoft PDC 2009) and it really makes a huge difference. This cheap little laptop, with the SSD, hooked up to a huge monitor, is one of the best dev environments I've ever used.
- qq66 16y ago
  Laptops get stolen more frequently than desktops?

93 points by alexandros 16y ago

newsisan 16y ago

I would disagree about not needing >2GB of ram, but other than that - SSDs rock.

someone_here 16y ago
On my Ubuntu machine, I rarely use more than 1GB (apart from the disk cache, of course, which can fill all remaining memory. Note: windows only has an 8MB cache)
- ergo98 16y ago
  Can you qualify the "Windows only has an 8MB cache" bit? Of course on Microsoft Windows it uses all available memory, quite effectively. If you have copious RAM you get far-better-than-SSD "read speeds" when reopening applications (which is a typical behavior, cycling between a small universe of applications), presuming your computing lifestyle is that your computer is never turned off...e.g. you put it to S3 sleep during off time.
- jerf 16y ago
  On my Kubuntu machine with 4GB, I rarely use more than 1.5GB of RAM, and that's counting the disk cache which will grow to fill all available space. Unless I run a VM, the system literally has no use for half my RAM, except for dual-channel access.
ssmoot 16y ago
Running VMs for testing during development (ie: an IE6 VM, IE7 VM, etc) are the major driver for us. Outside of that, my work machine has Chrome, Mail.app, Terminal and Textmate open generally so 2GB is fine without the VMs. My home machine is the previous generation, top of the line iMac (3GHz, 2GB) and is often noticeably sluggish. It looks like iTunes is responsible for a bit under 200MB. I really don't know what the issue is though to be honest, but it feels like a 4GB upgrade would get it over the hump.

stuff4ben 16y ago

Was surprised to hear OSX doesn't support TRIM. Does anyone know why? I was gettin all excited about getting a new SSD for my MBP, but now I'm not so sure...

js2 16y ago
Order a http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extr... and don't worry about it.
- misterbwong 16y ago
  Just as a followup, this OWC mercury isn't the only one that does built in garbage collection. From what I can tell, most newer generation SSD's do it. While it's not as good as TRIM support, it's a reasonable approximation. As a side note for anyone else considering buying an SSD, there are rumors flying around that Intel is getting set to re-release their SSD line with a smaller micron next month. This should cut costs and increase speeds in time for the Christmas season.
Perceval 16y ago
The groundwork for TRIM has existed in OS X since 10.5. For some reason, Apple is waiting to enable it. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59299-Something-like-Wiper-for-OS-X#post409366 http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59299... http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59512-Wiper.exe-and-Boot-Camp-for-OS-X&p=410647#post410647 http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?59512... http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2213830 http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2213830 http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/14/apple_laying_groundwork_for_trim_support_in_future_ssd_based_macs.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/14/apple_laying_g...
- bryanh 16y ago
  Steve Jobs: "Thanks to everyone for coming today. Today is a big day. Today we release an update for Mac OS X that quadruples SSD performance and furthermore, all Macs will come standard with a SSD hybrid... etc..."

gjm11 16y ago

There's not really very much revisiting, as opposed to repetition. What's new: (1) Atwood recommends the Crucial RealSSD C300 (citing a couple of reviews). (2) Seagate have a reasonably priced hybrid SSD/spinning-rust drive, the Momentus XT, which according to AnandTech has good performance. (It uses 4GB of flash as a read cache; performance is intermediate between typical HD and typical SSD.)

ergo98 16y ago
It's a revisited taxation on a gullible readership, many affiliate links there covering all budget points. My PC has both a standard, non-hybrid magnetic disk for volume, and a very, very fast SSD for speed. I use the SSD for development and, humorously, Steam games. It's nice, but given that I have 8GB of RAM and most everything I touch regularly is cached...and I virtually never turn my PC entirely off (S3 sleep is your friend)...outside of database tests it just doesn't make that much of a difference.
- healsdata 16y ago
  Interesting. I didn't notice the affiliate links the first time and then when I did look, I saw domain names like kqzyfj.com. What purpose does it serve to hide the fact that it's an affiliate link behind a disposable domain name? Are there things like Firefox extensions that would search for "commissionjunction.com" and replace it with non-affiliate links?
  - ergo98 16y ago
    I always look for affiliate links when bloggers suddenly start shilling merchandise outside of their competency. I don't mind when there's an obvious "best prices" DIV at the bottom or wherever, where its purpose and commercial motivation is obvious, but embedded affiliate links just feel....scummy. It's like getting invited to dinner and the host starts an Amway pitch. It colours the entire presentation.
    - jacquesm 16y ago

StavrosK 16y ago

Does anyone know how to get Linux to support TRIM? I just reformatted my SSD and would hate for it to become slower just because of deallocated blocks.

nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
According to the linked wikipedia page on the TRIM command, Linux has supported it "since Feb 2010", so I would imagine that anything running the 2.6.32 kernel would correctly utilize that feature if your drive supports it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  The article says that the "latest, greatest Linux kernels should beware", so I don't know what to think :/
  - kevindication 16y ago
    Parse it once more: "Operating systems earlier than Windows 7 and the latest, greatest Linux kernel should beware" Translation: latest, greatest Linux kernels support TRIM.
    - StavrosK 16y ago
      Ah, "earlier than (Win 7 and the latest kernel)", rather than "(earlier than Win 7) and the latest kernel". Thanks, looks like I'm covered, then. EDIT: Apparently, Ubuntu is one version behind TRIM support.
- limist 16y ago
  Looks like you'd need the Linux 2.6.33 kernel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM#Operating_system_support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM#Operating_system_support http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51105 http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51105

bconway 16y ago

Decent article, but out of date by a few months. None of the drives listed use the newer SandForce controller, which skyrockets sequential writes into the 275 MB/s range, and random writes into 50K IOPS. These drives are where it's at (for home/commodity use, etc).

Zev 16y ago
The Crucial RealSSD C300 drive he cites has a theoretical max of 355MB/s. I happen to have have this drive. Writes comes close to 150MB/s at times, after a month and a half of use on OS X (which apparently lacks TRIM). Thats not too shabby. Here's an Xbench result from about a month and a half ago (when I first got it) and one for today (as of 10:36am est): http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=459679&doc2=469412&setCookie=true http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=459679&doc2=469412...
- catch23 16y ago
  It only has that max if you happen to have a sata 3 compatible host, otherwise you'll be downgraded back to sata 2 and your speed will be comparable to everyone else.
justinchen 16y ago
I upgraded my MBP to the Corsair Force 240GB and it's been blazing. Boots in seconds and I'm never waiting for anything anymore.
- Perceval 16y ago
  I bought a 24GB ExpressCard SSD to use as a boot drive and to launch certain applications from. Gave my MacBook Pro new life, even though it's not a high end SSD.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

seunosewa 16y ago

Did anyone else notice that the performance of the Seagate Momentus XT is awful compared to all the solid state drives? It's only about 20% faster than a regular hard disk drive (the SSDs are about 1000% faster, according to Jeff's own chart). It's an awful, awful recommendation. If you want the performance of a solid state drive, buy a solid state drive.

AndrewDucker 16y ago
It's apparently not much faster than a physical drive for random data traffic, but much faster for loading frequently opened files and booting the PC.
- weaksauce 16y ago
  It's basically like the cache in your cpu now except it's a bit smarter about storing what goes in the flash memory. L1 = the 32MB RAM L2 = 4GB Flash finally the 500GB HD
Splines 16y ago
It'd be nice if there existed a thing that acted like the SSD part of the Seagate Momentus XT. That way I could hybrid-ize my existing drives and have greater flexibility for future upgrades.
- wipt 16y ago
  Check out ARC, ZFS has a implementation of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache
- wipt 16y ago
  Check out ARC, ZFS has a implementation of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

ssmoot 16y ago

I used to know OCZ as a bit of a shady, benchmark gaming outfit "back in the day". Today however, the SandForce based Vertex II Pro SSDs are amazing. 10K+ IOPs sustained with a genuine database load. 100GB for just over $600. Compare that with STEC Mach8 devices at ten times the price, not super-capacitor backed, and lower throughput. Sure a couple JBODs stacked with 15K RPM disks could do the same for $50K... Now imagine a small single-parity array of four SandForce devices. ;-) For most things, meh. But for databases, it's a real game changer. 2010 is definitely the year SSDs changed everything.

olegk 16y ago

C300 is definitely NOT the fastest SSD drive. There are a few that are much much faster. 1) FusionIO ioXtreme = 670/280 MB/s 2) FusionIO ioDrive = 770/750 MB/s, 140,000 IOPS 3) FusionIO ioDrive Duo = 1500/1500 MB/s, 261,000 IOPS 4) RamSan-440 = 4 GB/s, 600,000 IOPS 5) NextIO vSTOR S100 = 5.5/6 GB/s, 2,200,000 IOPS There are many more listed here: http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fastest.html http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fastest.html

mey 16y ago
The RamSan and NextIO aren't internal storage devices, and while the FuisionIO are non-volatile they use the PCI-E bus. A quick glance does not indicate if they are suitable to be booted from. (edit: all that aside from the cost of using any of those solution as a desktop's storage system) (edit2: not condoning the article in anyway)
ojbyrne 16y ago
These are either rack-mounted or PCIe drives. If I look at the chart on that page, then the C300 is the fastest 2.5 inch SATA drive. I.e. its the fastest drive that can practically be added to a laptop.

Revisor 16y ago

Tangential: Does anyone have experience with using SSDs in production web/DB servers? Is it viable (yet)?

MichaelApproved 16y ago
MySpace replaced all their fast hd's with SSDs about a year ago with good results http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139280/MySpace_replaces_all_server_hard_disks_with_flash_drives http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139280/MySpace_repla...
danudey 16y ago
We've got a client with a huge ($15,000) array of SSDs, that he's using to serve out about 9 gigabits of traffic per second from his webserver with one RAID enclosure. Duplicating the performance with normal drives would be cheaper for drives, but take several more enclosures.

bengl3rt 16y ago

I have the 2010 Mac Pro @ 3.33GHz. Going from the WD Caviar Black that it ships with to two SATA SSDs (60GB each, one for Boot and one for Apps) and one PCI SSD (120GB, for scratch work) has been unbelievable. This was a fast computer to begin with, but now I literally never find an application waiting on the disk. Xcode builds that take several minutes on my laptop (copying lots of resources into the bundle, for example) complete in seconds on the new machine. Highly recommended.

mhb 16y ago

I don't understand the reasoning about not wanting to put a relatively expensive SSD in a relatively cheap laptop.

MartinCron 16y ago
I've got an expensive SSD in my cheap laptop (free, actually, it was the one they gave me at Microsoft PDC 2009) and it really makes a huge difference. This cheap little laptop, with the SSD, hooked up to a huge monitor, is one of the best dev environments I've ever used.
qq66 16y ago
Laptops get stolen more frequently than desktops?