Ramsan10 PCI SSD Flash Disk Compatibility

[SeanLeyne]

FYI, I got a "budgetary" quote for a 450GB RamSan-20 PCIe Flash Card from Texas Memory Systems, last night, the price ... $18,000 USD

[anca]

Sean

I am interested in your solution using The Intel X25-E (because of the SLC flash make up)
I want to use this as a storage device for intensive database applications

However how does your solution compare to the compelling performance specs of single Ramsan 10 PCIe. ie:

# 120,000 sustained IOPS
# 700 MB/s random sustained external throughput
# ECC and RAID
# Embedded CPU controller .

The Ramsan has its own on board cpu (other similar devices such as FusionIO don't have this)so there is no impact on the server performance.

So this seems to be an ideal device to build a storage device , multiple PCIe cards in a box running Open E os -

The Question is will OPEN-E see the Ramsan PCI e cards

[tingshen]

Hi guys, I'm in Singapore and based on our testing with Intel since Jan 09, the best combi should be Adaptec 5805Z (zero maintenance, meaning no battery) with some X25-M disk array. We are using 8pcs of X25-M 160GB, but frankly speaking, 4pcs is good enough to fly like rocket if capacity is not your top concern.

The lifespan of enterprise class SLC SSD like X25-E is just too overkill. After some calculation and with the help from Adaptec, we opted for X25-M instead. Remember, it only has 3 yr warranty, I haven't seen any application is able to use anything near 30% of the estimated lifespan of X25-M.....and that's based on 5yr estimated usage.

The standalone performance was amazing. If you want to use such combination for Open-E, some X25-M can definitely go beyond the iSCSI (teaming) or even FC connectivity.

Yes, we also got in touch with TMS. Their product is one of the best, but the price is just too high....

We are now running the X25-M & 5805Z combi for almost 1yr in production Users are only complaining the applications are just responding too fast, resulted no tea breaks for them anymore.....lol

[tingshen]

SeanLeyne, any idea what's the processor used by 3Ware 9650?

Adaptec 5805Z is using Intel IOP348, which is probably the fastest non-SSD optimized storage controller at the moment.....I love the idea of "battery-less"!!!

[rcohen]

Hi guys, I'm in Singapore and based on our testing with Intel since Jan 09, the best combi should be Adaptec 5805Z (zero maintenance, meaning no battery) with some X25-M disk array. We are using 8pcs of X25-M 160GB, but frankly speaking, 4pcs is good enough to fly like rocket if capacity is not your top concern.

The lifespan of enterprise class SLC SSD like X25-E is just too overkill. After some calculation and with the help from Adaptec, we opted for X25-M instead. Remember, it only has 3 yr warranty, I haven't seen any application is able to use anything near 30% of the estimated lifespan of X25-M.....and that's based on 5yr estimated usage.

The standalone performance was amazing. If you want to use such combination for Open-E, some X25-M can definitely go beyond the iSCSI (teaming) or even FC connectivity.

Yes, we also got in touch with TMS. Their product is one of the best, but the price is just too high....

We are now running the X25-M & 5805Z combi for almost 1yr in production Users are only complaining the applications are just responding too fast, resulted no tea breaks for them anymore.....lol

I'd really caution you about using consumer-grade SSD for a critical server. You can't trust many of those lifespan figures. We have found that under heavy server loads, consumer SSDs will fail within months. Also, they tend to fail in ways that RAIDs are not able to detect, so you learn about a failed drive when you discover corrupt data!

As a general rule, SLC SSD is more reliable, but even there, you get a big variety of reliability.

This is an excellent web site that discusses SSD reliability issues:
http://www.storagesearch.com/

The problem is that enterprise-grade SSD is close to the same ballpark as RAM pricing.

For high-performance apps, the TDS and FusionIO options look like they offer a good combination of reliability and performance. We have so much data, though, that it looks like RAID10 SAS + lotsa RAM cache is the best option, at the moment.

Interesting that you need block-IO for auto-failover. Keep in mind that MaxIQ only does read caching.

It would be nice if someone came out with a similar product that could do RELIABLE read caching with MLC SSD, so that it would be cost effective for lots of data.

[rcohen]

TDS and FusionIO

oops...I meant TMS and FusionIO

[SeanLeyne]

However how does your solution compare to the compelling performance specs of single Ramsan 10 PCIe. ie:

# 120,000 sustained IOPS
# 700 MB/s random sustained external throughput
# ECC and RAID
# Embedded CPU controller .

The Ramsan has its own on board cpu (other similar devices such as FusionIO don't have this)so there is no impact on the server performance.

• The config was a hypothetical one based on my own experience, so I can't comment on performance. I can say that based on my experience with SSDs that the proposed config would be able to meet whatever external access load you could place on it with Open-e.

• The Ramsan values are based on a artificial/benchmarking load levels that would not be experienced in any real world environment you could construct.

• All RAID controllers have their own CPUs, which offload all IO from the server. Only software based RAID solutions use the server CPU. In this respect the Ramsan solution doesn't provide anything special.