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Using an SSD for your database is tempting, but please be aware you must use an SSD that can flush to disk in case of power loss. You should read here: http://

Using an SSD for your database is tempting, but please be aware you must use an SSD that can flush to disk in case of power loss. You should read here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/wal-reliability.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/wal-reliability.ht... and also search the pgsql-general mailing list for the numerous discussions there about which SSDs are safe for Postgres and which aren't, e.g. http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/1396467425.2481.2.camel@developer.localdomain http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/1396467425.2481.2.camel... and http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/50A34426.5020304@strategicdata.com.au http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/50A34426.5020304@strate... Assuming DO is giving you the SSDs you need, you should include a FAQ reassuring customers about that.

ebravick 12y ago
Hi everyone, I'm Eric, another one of the Database Labs founders. We asked for and received written confirmation from Digital Ocean on this question. Currently, all of their newer hardware uses full Battery Back Up (BBU) and RAID on all SSD arrays. Data centers where you are guaranteed to be on a box with their newer hardware are: NYC3, LON1, and AMS3. These locations are supported in the Database Labs interface. Digital Ocean's other data centers have a mix of hardware. All hardware at a minimum has dual redundant power supplies and hardware RAID with SSD drives, however, not all hardware has a BBU on the RAID card. While it is extremely unlikely that there will be a full power outage that overlaps with a write time on a database, it is possible. We recommend, if this is a concern for anyone, that deployments be restricted to NYC3, LON1, and AMS3. We will be monitoring this issue with Digital Ocean, and will let everyone know as more of their centers are guaranteed to be SSD + RAID + BBU. Thanks for the suggestion of documenting this on the web site, we will be adding some information about this in the near future.

ebravick 12y ago

Hi everyone, I'm Eric, another one of the Database Labs founders. We asked for and received written confirmation from Digital Ocean on this question. Currently, all of their newer hardware uses full Battery Back Up (BBU) and RAID on all SSD arrays. Data centers where you are guaranteed to be on a box with their newer hardware are: NYC3, LON1, and AMS3. These locations are supported in the Database Labs interface. Digital Ocean's other data centers have a mix of hardware. All hardware at a minimum has dual redundant power supplies and hardware RAID with SSD drives, however, not all hardware has a BBU on the RAID card. While it is extremely unlikely that there will be a full power outage that overlaps with a write time on a database, it is possible. We recommend, if this is a concern for anyone, that deployments be restricted to NYC3, LON1, and AMS3. We will be monitoring this issue with Digital Ocean, and will let everyone know as more of their centers are guaranteed to be SSD + RAID + BBU. Thanks for the suggestion of documenting this on the web site, we will be adding some information about this in the near future.