

Ask HN: Anyone using SSDs from SoftLayer yet? - tlack

I just noticed that SoftLayer provides SSDs as a disk option. I've been curious about using SSDs on database servers for a while (regular RAID+InnoDB or RethinkDB). Can anyone who has used them comment on their performance?
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cd34
Debian, 2.6.37-rc7, MSI-X & Xeon DMA, AHCI, Supermicro X7DVL-3, E5405x2, I
believe 4gb ram (when we benchmarked), DDR2, Synchronous, 667 MHz (1.5 ns)

320gb WD SATA2, AHCI

1.96,1.96,gfs1,1,1293773837,6584M,,709,98,56636,4,26136,2,2395,97,58757,2,192.5,1,16,,,,,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,14246us,224ms,352ms,14567us,15230us,520ms,267us,610us,644us,237us,14us,42us

Intel X25-M, 2nd gen, AHCI

1.96,1.96,gfs1,1,1293774560,6584M,,1026,99,101777,9,75787,8,2108,99,313987,14,15842,123,16,,,,,10180,27,+++++,+++,10635,27,10204,26,+++++,+++,8313,23,7808us,320ms,389ms,4258us,1271us,3544us,7230us,179us,3124us,4890us,42us,24047us

    
    
      meta-data=/dev/sda8              isize=256    agcount=4, agsize=6318564 blks
               =                       sectsz=512   attr=2
      data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25274253, imaxpct=25
               =                       sunit=0      swidth=0 blks
      naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0
      log      =internal               bsize=4096   blocks=12340, version=2
               =                       sectsz=512   sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
      realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
    

mount options: noatime,logbsize=262144,logbufs=8

IO Wait has almost disappeared for the series of machines we replaced. After a
number of lengthy calls to Intel, we put these with XFS (journaled
filesystem), on some very busy MySQL servers. I'd say we went from 10k RPS to
a little over 12k RPS measured after 14 days.

Intel's comment was regarding the degradation of the drive. They claimed that
we would easily see a number of years of service before we would have any
problem with block rewrites. As the systems are 50% full, the duty cycle was
claimed to be 5+ years. We debated Ext2/3/4 versus XFS, but, almost everything
we do is XFS already, Intel claimed even with journaling, we shouldn't have a
problem.

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johng
I'm using one on a very active database and it's been quite amazing. I would
say an SSD allows you to either cut your query times in half or double your
queries. They are that impressive.

I don't have before/after benchmarks but I can tell you we built a beefy
server with an SSD because our SCSI disk based server was falling on it's face
and now the load is very minimal.

~~~
arn
That's interesting. Can you be more specific what config you moved from and
to?

Were you on a SCSI RAID before? And are you on a single SSD or RAID config?

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foobarbazetc
The SoftLayer SSDs are Intel X25-E's, so just find benchmarks for those and
it'll be the same. :)

