Servers with SSD drives, robust enough yet?

[knc]

Quoting out some new Servers with SSD options... Hoping SSD for Servers are ready for primetime, is anyone running them this way?

I would bet the speed performance over 15k drives should be pretty apparent..

 

[lcoughey]

As the OS drive, I'd be okay with it. But, not for storing critical server data shares. At least not unless you are going to have a very solid backup solution. When SSDs work, they work great. But, when they fail, the fail fast and hard.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I've been resistant to SSD over recent years, but since prices have come down, and reliability of a couple of brands have built a track record....I actually quoted a server with them recently. Client stayed with spindle drives for budget and large space concerns...but I'd do one...so long as:
*Still did hardware RAID 1
*Samsung, Crucial, or Intel SSDs

Of course since it's a server...regardless of drive type, proper daily backup is being done.

 

[BlackLabTechs]

I have 3 servers with ssd's in them. All Raid 1 or 10, all backed up multiple times / day or daily. 1 is sql server and other 2 are terminal servers. The ssd drives are Samsungs and I made management approve replacement every year in the sql box regardless if it needed it or not. The removed ssd's just get filtered down to laptops / workstations so it works out well.

Now the kicker - these aren't the only 3 servers on site. There's 10 physical servers where workloads can be moved to / restored to should something happen. 4 more spare physical servers at another site ready to be spun up in case of severe emergency.

If this were a shop with only 1 server would I consider it? Sure, but only in Raid with redundancy (No Raid 0).

 

[Moltuae]

I have 3 servers with ssd's in them. All Raid 1 or 10, all backed up multiple times / day or daily. 1 is sql server and other 2 are terminal servers. The ssd drives are Samsungs and I made management approve replacement every year in the sql box regardless if it needed it or not. The removed ssd's just get filtered down to laptops / workstations so it works out well.

Now the kicker - these aren't the only 3 servers on site. There's 10 physical servers where workloads can be moved to / restored to should something happen. 4 more spare physical servers at another site ready to be spun up in case of severe emergency.

If this were a shop with only 1 server would I consider it? Sure, but only in Raid with redundancy (No Raid 0).

Similar here. Got a few servers out there that have been running SSDs for years now (oldest is probably 3+ years old). All of them are running Samsung SSDs in RAID 10 with frequent full and incremental backups -- not had a single failure yet though (out of probably 50+ server SSD installations). In fact, out of hundreds of SSDs, I've only had one failure so far and that was an early Sandisk SSD in a desktop PC.

 

[bluecoast]

I've been running samsung SSD's in my Dell T320 server for a few years with no issues. A client has a clunker of a program(Thompson Reuters accounting software) constantly complaining about DB speed. We put in 2 server grade Intel SSD's (RAID 1)on a NVRAM backed RAID controller and have had no speed complaints yet. I was a little hesitant, but have had very few failures with quality SSD's that I thought it was worth the risk compared to constantly dealing with tickets complaining about DB speed. Server backups are done hourly just in case, but so far so good.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Are you guys keeping spare SSD's onsite/on hand just in case? I know with Dell Pro Support you get same or next day delivery if a part fails. Obviously this isn't the case with using 3rd party drives. And they are cheap enough to keep on hand.

 

[knc]

I've been running samsung SSD's in my Dell T320 server for a few years with no issues. A client has a clunker of a program(Thompson Reuters accounting software) constantly complaining about DB speed. We put in 2 server grade Intel SSD's (RAID 1)on a NVRAM backed RAID controller and have had no speed complaints yet. I was a little hesitant, but have had very few failures with quality SSD's that I thought it was worth the risk compared to constantly dealing with tickets complaining about DB speed. Server backups are done hourly just in case, but so far so good.

That Thompson Reuters package is a DOG and slow as dirt

 

[marley1]

Are these working with Dell Perc cards?

 

[BlackLabTechs]

Are these working with Dell Perc cards?

Yes, they work. However I do get the alert that non-certified drive has been detected. But not a big deal for me. Has worked with both Perc 6/i and H700 controllers.

 

[frederick]

Havent really done local storage in a minute. ive moved on to "NAS" and SAN storage. i use SSDs religiously in those. they are my T0 storage, 4 drives typically. you can do this with Linux and GFS/BTRFS as well. every so often one goes bad, but the speeds make up for it, and ive had more SAS drives fail than SSDs in the last year.

The only local storage i use these days is in workstations (SATA) and laptops (SSD).

Hope this helped

 

[uprighttech]

We've done a couple of Dell servers with SSDs in the past few months for clients without huge data needs. Like others here, we're doing RAID 1 / RAID 10. Haven't had any issues so far, and the speed benefits are very nice. Reboots are lightning fast, minimizing downtime when it's necessary, and data access is very quick.

A client has a clunker of a program(Thompson Reuters accounting software) constantly complaining about DB speed.

Had a client move to their Virtual Office CS Citrix environment hoping it would behave better than the on-prem stuff, and it's no better. Last year at tax time, it was so slow they could hardly work and they were getting dropped constantly. This client has 2 locations, both on fiber - one is 50/50 with about 10 people, and the other over 150/150 with about 6 people. Support was not much help either.