SSD Drive for Server?

macally · 25 Jan 2013 at 11:39

I have recently bought a HP ML110 G6 Quad Core Xeon Server and am upgrading the Ram to 16GB ECC Registered.

My plan is to use the server with Windows SBS2011 or Server 2012 and use it for DNS/Email/File Server/Active Directory.

If I go for Server 2012, I will be using Office365 for the email but this will be managed through the Server. If I go for SBS2011, I will be using the built-in Exchange Management Console.

I have 2 x 2TB Samsung F4's and I'm planning to run them in a mirrored RAID setup and use those for the data on the server, however, I was wondering if it would be beneficial to use an SSD for the OS?

My main concern is that SBS2011 requires 120GB of hard drive space in order to install so would need at least a 128GB SSD.

Would there be much of a performance increase in using an SSD over a standard 250GB hard drive for example?

iaind · 25 Jan 2013 at 11:46

No, no benefit in a server like this. It might boot quicker, but it's a server - who cares

tribz · 25 Jan 2013 at 11:46

I think there would be a significant speed increase but I wouldn't like to do it without redundancy. I'm not convinced in my own mind yet that on a server that they would last as long as mechanical disks either.

macally · 25 Jan 2013 at 11:51

iaind said:
No, no benefit in a server like this. It might boot quicker, but it's a server - who cares

tribz said:
I think there would be a significant speed increase but I wouldn't like to do it without redundancy. I'm not convinced in my own mind yet that on a server that they would last as long as mechanical disks either.

Thanks for the replies. Would it be better to have the OS on the same RAID array that the data's on (partitioned?) or have a completely separate drive for the OS?

tribz · 25 Jan 2013 at 11:54

macally said:
Thanks for the replies. Would it be better to have the OS on the same RAID array that the data's on (partitioned?) or have a completely separate drive for the OS?

Depends how far you want to take the redundancy but that's the way I have it on mine. OS and Data partitions on the same array.

macally · 25 Jan 2013 at 11:58

tribz said:
Depends how far you want to take the redundancy but that's the way I have it on mine. OS and Data partitions on the same array.

Thanks,

I think that's the way I'm going to go - that way there is redundancy for the OS install as well.

iaind · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:16

tribz said:
I think there would be a significant speed increase but I wouldn't like to do it without redundancy. I'm not convinced in my own mind yet that on a server that they would last as long as mechanical disks either.

Speed increase in what regard?

It's a server, it's serving files off the data drives - so the speed at which that will work is dictated by the data drives, not the OS drives. It's not a user interactive server - you're not launching apps and things from there.

Sure the management consoles will load a bit quicker and it'll boot quicker...but who cares? It's a server, not worth the extra outlay. Why do you think 99% of servers in use in actual server environments still use rotational disks? SSDs are gaining ground but for high IO applications, not file sharing

A RAID controller with decent cache would do a much better job at giving a performance increase but thats debatably pointless on this scale too. The money is better spent on something actually useful - more capacity or beer.

tribz · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:22

Its your opinion Iaind and you are of course entitled to it.

iaind · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:32

......

Strange response to a technical explanation of why an SSD wont offer any useful performance increase in this sort of application. It wasn't an opinion - it was a correction of an incorrect statement made by yourself.

If you took 2 identical servers in this configuration, one with an SSD and one with a rotational drive for the OS, the one with the SSD would not be any quicker as a server than the one without. The only possible situation where this might be the case is if he goes for SBS with Exchange. If the Exchange DB was put on the SSD (Bad idea!) then it might be a bit quicker, although in reality Exchange 2010 is really nicely optimised for low IO disks so it probably wouldnt help much there. Or, if the mailbox store causes paging due to memory use then it might help out there if the pagefile was on the SSD - but given the minimal user load on such a server, I cant see this ever happening.

So it's not an opinion, I'd suggest if you're going to offer people advice then you have the technical facts to explain it, otherwise you're just encouraging people to spend their hard earned on something which will give them no benefit

tribz · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:39

Question, will it be faster ... YES. A generic answer to a generic question.

Question, is it worth it (which wasn't really alluded to in the OP). Not necessarily and I highlighted my concerns to that in the latter half of my reply.

Keep it friendly, hey?

Baggins_451 · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:56

I use an SSD in a 2008 server as a distribution point for my MDT 2010 setup, a mechanical drive couldn't cope when building a lab of 30+ machines simultaneously.

Horses for courses :/

tribz · 25 Jan 2013 at 13:08

Baggins_451 said:
I use an SSD in a 2008 server as a distribution point for my MDT 2010 setup, a mechanical drive couldn't cope when building a lab of 30+ machines simultaneously.

Horses for courses :/

I had a client ask for a speed up on the Backup Exec startup so we put an SSD disk in just for BE. It obviously wont be for everyone and some might think its a waste of money but he could check the the status in seconds each morning rather than 20-30 seconds. Each to their own and he was happy to spend the money on that as it worked for him.

I'm also thinking of running a VM host of one for some testing that I need to do later this month.

iaind · 25 Jan 2013 at 13:15

Baggins_451 said:
I use an SSD in a 2008 server as a distribution point for my MDT 2010 setup, a mechanical drive couldn't cope when building a lab of 30+ machines simultaneously.

Horses for courses :/

Of course, in that sort of situation it will work well. In a basic home server, no point.

I'm not saying there's never a point - I've literally just ordered a 512gb Samsung 840 Pro for a blade server I'm using as a VDI load evaluation test bed

Yamahahahahaha · 25 Jan 2013 at 15:53

The endurance on Samsung 840s is significantly lower than their 830 predecessors unfortunately. 420TB of writes vs. 6PB or more.

I hope Samsung keep manufacturing the 830, even if they do cost a bit more.

iaind · 25 Jan 2013 at 16:14

To be honest it's a benchmark/proof of concept lab system - any live view deployments will be SAN backed. This will be mostly reads anyway, so hopefully it wont pack up before I'm done with it

HarryPainful · 25 Jan 2013 at 18:44

tribz said:
Its your opinion Iaind and you are of course entitled to it.

His opinion is 100% correct.

tribz · 25 Jan 2013 at 23:24

HarryPainful said:
His opinion is 100% correct.

I haven't actually disagreed with it but thanks for your opinion also.

droyden · 26 Jan 2013 at 01:22

Whats your reason for using an SSD for boot on a server?

bremen1874 · 26 Jan 2013 at 01:59

Yamahahahahaha said:
The endurance on Samsung 840s is significantly lower than their 830 predecessors unfortunately. 420TB of writes vs. 6PB or more.

I hope Samsung keep manufacturing the 830, even if they do cost a bit more.

Where did these figures come from?

Are you comparing to the 830 to the 840, or to the 840 Pro? Both the 830 and the 840 Pro use MLC NAND (AFAIK) so why would there be such a massive difference?

Yamahahahahaha · 26 Jan 2013 at 14:43

bremen1874 said:
Where did these figures come from?

Are you comparing to the 830 to the 840, or to the 840 Pro? Both the 830 and the 840 Pro use MLC NAND (AFAIK) so why would there be such a massive difference?

The 840 Pro uses two-bit MLC like the 830, so that should have similar durability. I thought all the new 840 series used 21nm TLC chips but apparently not.

The above figures only apply to the non-pro 840 256GB.