4 ms·

Ram might not hold all the information, and reading the files isn't the problem, finding them is. SSD's have virtually no seek time, it is RAM. Tossing in a 6

Ram might not hold all the information, and reading the files isn't the problem, finding them is. SSD's have virtually no seek time, it is RAM. Tossing in a 64gig SSD essentially puts the entire file system in RAM, at least that's what it feels like, they don't need warming up. It feels like everything's in the page cache all the time.

lsc 17y ago
if the file is in cache, you can 'find' it in cache, without hitting disk. seek time, (which I assume is what you mean by 'finding it') is only a problem if the file isn't cached in ram. Yes, running on a SSD takes the entire filesystem much closer to ram speeds. However, you are doing so at almost ram prices. (I'm speaking of good SSDs, like the X-25E; which comes to something like $15 per gigabyte; the not so good SSDs have problems of their own. I have a SSD in my laptop right now that is branded by one of the gamer ram companies, i forget which one. It was pretty cheap, under $2 per gigabyte. It's pretty nice for reads, for writes, sometimes it is good, but often writes are worse than spinning disk.) The advantage of just buying the ram is that a good virtual memory management system can automatically optimize to keep the data you access most often in ram. Like I said, i use a SSD in my laptop, a cheap brand and it's small, my laptop doesn't need a lot of storage, so the cost is reasonable, and I use a journaling file system, so writes are cached and the slow sub-cell size write speeds of the cheap SSD aren't a huge problem. I'm just explaining why in my servers, I prefer to go with a whole lot of ram, and then slow, cheap, and large SATA, rather than less ram and expensive SSD.
- gnaritas 17y ago
  I don't disagree about stuffing ram in servers, that's obviously the best approach, but it isn't always an option. I'm talking about the desktop experience. Many of us are limited by time and circumstance and are still using 32bit OS's on the desktop. I can't stuff it with RAM, but my Intel X-25M SSD makes my desktop smoke like no other hardware upgrade ever has. My of us are also stuck with mission critical legacy 32 bit servers that we can't just take down and upgrade so easily and licenses for enterprise versions of some db's that can handle assloads of ram don't come cheap. SSD's are much cheaper and a no brainer upgrade for that aging db server that just needs to be faster. The X-25E smokes here letting you get that speed without needing that expensive license.

lsc 17y ago

if the file is in cache, you can 'find' it in cache, without hitting disk. seek time, (which I assume is what you mean by 'finding it') is only a problem if the file isn't cached in ram. Yes, running on a SSD takes the entire filesystem much closer to ram speeds. However, you are doing so at almost ram prices. (I'm speaking of good SSDs, like the X-25E; which comes to something like $15 per gigabyte; the not so good SSDs have problems of their own. I have a SSD in my laptop right now that is branded by one of the gamer ram companies, i forget which one. It was pretty cheap, under $2 per gigabyte. It's pretty nice for reads, for writes, sometimes it is good, but often writes are worse than spinning disk.) The advantage of just buying the ram is that a good virtual memory management system can automatically optimize to keep the data you access most often in ram. Like I said, i use a SSD in my laptop, a cheap brand and it's small, my laptop doesn't need a lot of storage, so the cost is reasonable, and I use a journaling file system, so writes are cached and the slow sub-cell size write speeds of the cheap SSD aren't a huge problem. I'm just explaining why in my servers, I prefer to go with a whole lot of ram, and then slow, cheap, and large SATA, rather than less ram and expensive SSD.

gnaritas 17y ago
I don't disagree about stuffing ram in servers, that's obviously the best approach, but it isn't always an option. I'm talking about the desktop experience. Many of us are limited by time and circumstance and are still using 32bit OS's on the desktop. I can't stuff it with RAM, but my Intel X-25M SSD makes my desktop smoke like no other hardware upgrade ever has. My of us are also stuck with mission critical legacy 32 bit servers that we can't just take down and upgrade so easily and licenses for enterprise versions of some db's that can handle assloads of ram don't come cheap. SSD's are much cheaper and a no brainer upgrade for that aging db server that just needs to be faster. The X-25E smokes here letting you get that speed without needing that expensive license.