Best SSD for data storage / Downloads

Associate
Joined
17 May 2012
Posts
98
This would be 750GB and above.

Already have a 60GB for OS need another for downloads and a database "table space". Also in the future i may want to get another one to raid (software or hardware, not sure which yet) to further increase the performance of the table space. Thanks
 
If I am honest SSD drives really are a waste for pure data storage and not really designed to do it either.

You would be much better off getting a 4TB Western Digital Red for storage or a 4TB Western Digital Black if you wanted a longer warranty and better read write times.

The new 4TB WD Black listed below boasts 170mb/s read and write times which is very respectable and the 4TB WD Red is designed for 24/7 operation with low heat and noise.

I have two 3TB WD Red drives in mirrored mode and they are both fantastic really quiet and I get reasonable write speeds when copying large files.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 4TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD4003FZEX) HDD £209.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 4TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD40EFRX - OEM HDD £161.99
Total : £381.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
Last edited:
Assuming you'll be updating your database, the tablespace will receive an awful lot of writes which may not be best on an SSD. Although fast I/O speeds will certainly help database performance, it will only be of huge benefit if you are performing large full table/index scans. The configuration of your database, and caching will likely bring greater performance benefits.

TL;DR version - put database datafiles on a mechanical drive and tune your database.
 
Hi, Demon, you say SSD are not designed for that. But would that either perform worse; than say a 1TB Veloci raptor or would they die / malfunction down the line? I read on the manufactures website that a 1TB SSD would be fine for 70TB of data which is at least five years worth

Hi Zola I already have the database on an SSD thus it already is receiving a lot of reads/writes.

What configurations and cashe options are you reffering to? PS Im a SQL noob

Thanks guys
 
You probably have a point with the writes over the life of the SSD, especially if you know how much (little?) you'll be writing.

As for the database, it depends on what kind of database you are using. For example, I have an Oracle database on a VM with 2Gb allocated for the buffer cache, this is plenty of space for my data. Once the data has been read from disk it largely remains in memory enhancing the performance. This is a bit of a generalisation, but you get the idea.
 
Hi, Demon, you say SSD are not designed for that. But would that either perform worse; than say a 1TB Veloci raptor or would they die / malfunction down the line? I read on the manufactures website that a 1TB SSD would be fine for 70TB of data which is at least five years worth

Hi Zola I already have the database on an SSD thus it already is receiving a lot of reads/writes.

What configurations and cashe options are you reffering to? PS Im a SQL noob

Thanks guys

I am not saying an SSD won’t do a job but what I am saying is that an SSD drive is a MASSIVE overkill for downloading and a database storage device.

SSDs really come into their own when you have an OS installed on them with games and applications so that loading times are massively increased when large files and applications have to read and write lots of data I'm talking GB's at a time.

For the price of one Samsung 1TB Evo you could have 12 TB of Western Digital Red drives. You will barely notice any difference in speed between the information you are accessing and writing to these either, as the nature of your data doesn’t require super-fast read and write times.
 
Last edited:
That's good advice from Demon. Although SSDs have great read/write throughput their largest advantage is low access times. This is something neither downloads nor database files will need. Indexing your data correctly within the database will provide vastly greater performance than faster access times.
 
Back
Top Bottom