What is the advantage of an enterprise SSD versus a consumer SSD?

[Cromulent]

I'm starting to think about my new build (not actually going to build it for a year or so but I need to start thinking about components so I can save up for them) and was wondering about whether I should get consumer grade SSDs or enterprise SSDs.

I'm thinking of getting 2 NVMe PCI-E SSDs (one for Windows and one for Linux) and was wondering what the real difference is between the enterprise SSDs and consumer SSDs? If I wanted better reliability (even at the cost of a little bit of performance) would I be better off with the enterprise PCI-E SSD?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Consumer SSDs are optimised for small disk queue depths and Enterprise SSDs are optimised for large disk queue depths (things like databases, mail servers). Have seen a few benchmarks where consumer SSDs outperform enterprise ones at small queue depths (the typical usage you will give it in a PC). Sort of like single-threaded performance vs multi-threaded.

 

[Cromulent]

Consumer SSDs are optimised for small disk queue depths and Enterprise SSDs are optimised for large disk queue depths (things like databases, mail servers). Have seen a few benchmarks where consumer SSDs outperform enterprise ones at small queue depths (the typical usage you will give it in a PC). Sort of like single-threaded performance vs multi-threaded.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

 

[nutcase]

I forget the term but they also have higher number ofspare sectors to replace failed ones.

Oh, over provision.

 

[Cromulent]

I forget the term but they also have higher number ofspare sectors to replace failed ones.

Oh, over provision.

So in general they last longer then? Hmm. I was thinking about putting 4 SSDs into a RAID 10 array. Sounds like enterprise drives might be what I am after all.

 

[nutcase]

Yes, but how long do you want them to last? Consumer ones at consumer usage tend to last quite a while.

 

[Rroff]

So in general they last longer then? Hmm. I was thinking about putting 4 SSDs into a RAID 10 array. Sounds like enterprise drives might be what I am after all.

Depending on the price difference and cost of convenience a properly setup multi-disc RAID you can just swap out individual drives as they fail and might not be much of an advantage over using cheaper consumer drives.

 

[ecksmen]

I forget the term but they also have higher number ofspare sectors to replace failed ones.

Oh, over provision.

I've always struggled with this term Over-Provision in regards to SSD and storage in general.

I feel its really an under-provisioned as its smaller volume than the actual disk size, but I guess at the block size you could consider it as over-provisioned as it could live on any of those blocks.

Thin provisioning of storage, allocating smaller volumes than the actual disk space can provide can lead to over-provisioning whereby if all thin volumes expanded fully you'd potentially not have enough space if you over-provisioned your volumes.

I guess its not the first time we have contradicting terminology.