Power Loss Followthrough
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@StrongBad said:
That would depend on the same factors as if you didn't have a RAID controller. Enterprise class drives are about support and write lifespans. That you have RAID or do not have RAID does not affect that in a significant way.
The manufacturers always seem to harp on the power circuitry.
Perhaps for desktops?
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Lots of people get them and don't have RAID cards in front of them. And you do want the drive to get stuff to disk before reporting to the RAID card. But pretty much, it's all in the controller
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Still would always recommend enterprise level SSDs for servers though, right?
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@BRRABill said:
Still would always recommend enterprise level SSDs for servers though, right?
No, they are rarely recommended except for getting integrated support. In almost any situation where you would be in a position to choose, you'd choose consumer.
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@scottalanmiller said:
No, they are rarely recommended except for getting integrated support. In almost any situation where you would be in a position to choose, you'd choose consumer.
But only if behind a RAID controller with cache though, right?
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
No, they are rarely recommended except for getting integrated support. In almost any situation where you would be in a position to choose, you'd choose consumer.
But only if behind a RAID controller with cache though, right?
Why would RAID matter?
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A RAID cache is always recommended .... for SSD because it reduces write wear, for Winchesters because it adds so much performance.
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My line of though was
consumer SSD theoreticallly has less writes
the RAID controller saves, as you said, a ton of writeshence if you get a consumer drive, you;d want to pair it with the RAID controller with cache to save the writes. we had a whole thread on that.
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@BRRABill said:
hence if you get a consumer drive, you;d want to pair it with the RAID controller with cache to save the writes. we had a whole thread on that.
But having a RAID card is the starting assumption for any important workload. The choice of consumer versus enterprise is not driven by it because it is an assumed starting point.
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I don't think RAID controller vs non-RAID controller was his point.
His point was cache vs non-cache from what I was reading.
Even if Enterprise Drives have a longer write life than consumer drives, why spend the clock cycles writing things to the drive that change while they exist in cache.
I suppose my question is, does RAID cache in front of SSDs provide any performance boast? I suppose it could in that the RAID controller will confirm to the app that the data is written before the SSDs below the RAID controller could, speeding up the processing.
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Well, to take a step back, I always thought the reasoning behind enterprise class SSD was
a) -- power loss circuitry to prevent data loss
b -- longer write cycle life
c -- onboard cachingIf a RAID controller
a -- takes care of this for us
b -- absorbs all the writes
c -- disables this cachingWhy would one ever recommend an enterprise level SSD behind a raid controller? Or are you saying they (You) wouldn't?
EXCEPT if you needed to maintain system conformity (all DELL) or get a feature like the LEDs in DELL server that the EDGE SSDs give you?
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@Dashrender said:
I don't think RAID controller vs non-RAID controller was his point.
Assumptions:
- All business class storage workloads are on RAID or equivalent (like RAIN).
- All business class RAID has cache.
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@BRRABill said:
Well, to take a step back, I always thought the reasoning behind enterprise class SSD was
a) -- power loss circuitry to prevent data loss
b -- longer write cycle life
c -- onboard caching even in the Winchester era, this was disabled which is why enterprise drives had little to no cache and consumers have big cache. -
The reasons for enterprise SSDs are primarily:
- Integrated support from the server vendor
- Longer write lifetimes
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@BRRABill said:
Why would one ever recommend an enterprise level SSD behind a raid controller? Or are you saying they (You) wouldn't?
With rare exception, only when you want integrated support from your vendor or need controller support for the firmware.
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@scottalanmiller said:
- Longer write lifetimes
When would this be applicable, since you mention it here, but only recommend enterprise class in rare cases, none of which of the rare cases mention this.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
- Longer write lifetimes
When would this be applicable, since you mention it here, but only recommend enterprise class in rare cases, none of which of the rare cases mention this.
When you have systems that are hard to get to, generally. Like on ships or in Antarctica and shipping replacement drives there is very costly and difficult.
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So just to confirm
- if you aren't in Antarctica and
- you are assumed to be using a Raid card with cache, and
- you don't need manufacturer integrated support
...consumer is the way to go.
Regular consumer (like the Samsung EVO 850) or the Pro consumer (Evo 850 PRO)?
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The problem that this boils down to is... you want to use Dell hardware, but non dell HDs. This is a mismatch.
@scottalanmiller , would you say that it's probably a good time for SMBs to consider moving away from Dell/HP and more toward SuperMicro because you can use your own drives more freely with the RAID controller you install there?
of course, you probably don't get things like front panel lights on failing/failed drives?
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I'm not talking about my situation, just in general.
Concept and theory.
Just to learn.
I fully understand what I have done with the DELL drives.
