"Far
from being killed by flash SSDs - the high-end RAM SSD market grew in
2010 and
then again in 2011"
says editor Zsolt
Kerekes.
"Every time the
PCIe flash SSD market
sells another 50 to 100 cards to accelerate a bunch of user servers - that
creates a new demand
bottleneck
which may one day be cleared only by RAM SSDs."
Despite that
the enterprise SSD market today - which 10 years ago was 100% RAM based - is now
overwhelmingly
dominated by flash. Reports from SSD vendors suggest that in
2012 - RAM SSDs and
RAM cache in flash
SSDs probably accounted for no more than 1 to 2% of all
enterprise SSD capacity. | |
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| When flash
SSDs aren't fast enough! |
RAM based SSDs are the
original type of
solid state disk and have
been around for
decades.
They rely on batteries to retain data
when power is
lost. Most models also include internal
hard disk drives to
which data is saved under battery power, so that data is not lost when the
battery runs down. This hybrid technology means that RAM based SSDs are more
bulky than
flash counterparts
and RAM SSDs are unable to operate in the same range of
hostile environments.
RAM based SSDs are mostly used in enterprise server speedup
applications. The fastest RAM SSDs are faster than the fastest
flash SSDs. But
for many server speedup applications flash SSDs are fast enough.
Unlike
flash SSDs, RAM based SSDs never had restrictions on the number of write
cycles. That made them more popular in enterprise acceleration applications in
the past. But write
endurance problems may be a thing of the past for flash.
Like hard
disks - RAM SSDs have symmetric read/write IOPS. That's another big
difference between
RAM and flash SSDs.
The fastest flash SSDs available in 2009 had
achieved parity between random read and write IOPS.
But that's not how
transaction based applications work. The important differentiator here is repeat again write
IOPS. If you compare that between RAM and flash based SSDs - the RAM
SSDs are upto 100x faster - even when the datasheets suggest they look
the same.
On the other hand - in some enterprise applications - like
IPTV servers - the
random write IOPS rarely repeats in the same memory space during milli-second
timeframes - and in these video server apps - flash really does perform as well
as RAM - and is much cheaper.
Latency figures quoted by many flash SSD
products can also look very similar to those for RAM SSDs. But low random write
latency doesn't mean that the data has actually hit the flash media yet - as
you'll find if you try to read back the data and rewrite to the same block.
There
are also some non volatile memory products such as
PRAM,
FRAM and RRAM which are replacing flash in industrial applications - and
which already offer 1 to 1 read/write performance. But their capacity is 2
orders of magnitude too low to be of use in server applications.
RAM
SSDs cost about 3x as much as SLC flash SSDs for similar capacity in FC
SAN rackmount systems - (based on pricing data 2011.)
The ideal
choice of SSD depends on the specific server and application environment and
cost / benefit analysis.
Not everyone needs or can afford the
fastest SSDs. Some
environments do. Others don't.
Identifying the right choice of SSD in
the right place is a complex decision - which requires a high degree of
SSD education and
trust in the vendor.
More articles about the problems and solutions
related to accelerating enterprise server apps can be seen on the
SSD ASAPs page. | | |
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| how fast can your SSD run
backwards? |
Editor:- April 20, 2012 - StorageSearch.com today published
a new article which looks at the
11 key symmetries in
SSD design.
SSDs are complex devices and there's a lot of
mysterious behavior which isn't fully revealed by
benchmarks and
vendor's product datasheets and whitepapers. Underlying all the important
aspects of SSD behavior are asymmetries which arise from the intrinsic
technologies and architecture inside the SSD.
Which symmetries are
most important in an SSD? - That depends on your application. But knowing
that these symmetries exist, what they are, and judging how your selected SSD
compares will give you new insights into SSD
performance,
cost and
reliability.
There's
no such thing as - the perfect SSD - existing in the market today - but
the SSD symmetry list helps you to understand where any SSD in any memory
technology stands relative to the ideal. And it explains why deviations from the
ideal can matter. |
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| RAM vs
flash SSDs decision tipping point |
Editor:- in December 2010 - I interviewed Jamon Bowen,
Director of Sales Engineering for Texas Memory Systems
and asked him about the use of SSDs in financial applications like banks and
traders - a market which he said accounts for most of their RAM SSD sales.
The company which started in RAM SSDs
over 30 years
ago - now sells more flash SSDs than RAM SSDs (even though the product
brand for both types of SSD is
confusingly called
RamSan.) Bowen said that flash is 70% of their business.
Jamon
Bowen said that in many bank applications RAM SSDs are actually cheaper than
flash - because of the small size of the data. TMS still sell a lot of 16GB RAM
SSDs.
Production bank systems are typically shared by many hosts and
get a lot of write IOPS / capacity. To achieve the same
reliability and
latency with
flash would
require over
provisioning which would drive the cost up.
He suggested a simple
rule of thumb for intensive IOPS bank SSDs on the SAN
- < 128GB capacity - RAM SSDs cheaper
- 128GB to 4TB capacity - middle ground could be either - or determined by
other constraints
- > 4TB - flash SSDs cheaper
Jamon Bowen said that the analysis
side of operations in banks is different. That tends to have much larger data
sets and is more read than write intensive. In these apps - flash SSDs are
usually more economic. | | |
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how will Memory Channel SSDs affect the
PCIe SSD market?
Editor:- April 29, 2013 - StorageSearch.com today published
a new article about the technical challenges and market opportunities posed by
Memory Channel Storage SSDs which
are being designed by SMART and Diablo Technologies.
...read the article
in memory database even better with FIO's flash
Editor:-
November 20, 2012 - McObject
recently released new
benchmark results which indicate that the in-memory database company is not
so unfriendly to flash SSDs as you may have thought from reading earlier
company positioning papers.
It seems that a software product - which
was originally designed for the DRAM-HDD world - is a good fit in the flash SSD
world too - if you have the right scale of data and the right SSD. ...read more
Micron sources power holdup technology for NVDIMMs
Editor:-
November 14, 2012 - Micron
has signed an agreement
with AgigA Tech
to collaborate to develop and offer nonvolatile DIMM (NVDIMM) products using
AgigA's PowerGEM (sudden power loss
controller and holdup modules).
STEC discloses RAM vs flash SSD revenues
Editor:-
November 7, 2012 - among other things STEC revealed
yesterday in its earnings conference call that RAM SSDs were approximately 4%
of its revenues in the recent quarter.
AMD will rebrand Dataram's RAMDisk software
Editor:-
September 6, 2012 - Dataram
today
announced
it will develop a version of its RAMDisk software which will be rebranded
by AMD in Q4 under the name of Radeon
RAMDisk and will target Windows market gaming enthusiasts seeking (upto 5x)
faster performance when used with enough memory. See also:-
SSD software
Kaminario recommends you read SSD Symmetries article
Editor:-
June 15, 2012 - I accidentally discovered today that earlier this week Gareth Taube,
VP of Marketing at Kaminario
published a new blog
in which he recommends my article about
SSD Symmetries.
Gareth
says "Flexibility, such as being able to integrate multiple memory
technologies into a single box (like Kaminario's K2-H), is going to be
increasingly important to customers who want efficiency and customization
options. This is especially true because there are many memory innovations
coming on the near horizon." ...read Gareth's blog
Editor's
comments:- when I was writing the symmetry article one of the things I had in
mind to do was to put more examples in it. Then I realized that having lots of
examples would simply make the article unreadable.
One of the examples
I was going to use for good roadmap symmetry (but then forgot to put
anywhere) was in fact Kaminario - because they can leverage off whatever
Fusion-io does with
flash (or other nv memory)
and furthermore Kaminario can also leverage off whatever server makers do with
CPUs and RAM. Roadmap
symmetry is a long term consideration - important for big users who don't like
supplier churn and important for
VCs and investors too.
...Later:-
I'm glad I wrote that bit about "roadmap symmetry" - because by a
spooky coincidence - 3 days later we got the news that Kaminario's investors
still love what they do.
June 18, 2012 - Kaminario today
announced
it has secured a $25 million series D round of funding, bringing its total
funding to $65 million.
sharpen your SSD R/W grid latency weapons to 5µS
Editor:-
May 9, 2012 - Kove
has published some
new
record latency numbers for its fast
RAM SSD - the XPD L2 -
which has achieved continuous and sustained 5 microsecond random storage read
and write when connected via 40Gb/s
InfiniBand adapters
from Mellanox .
Kove's system has good
R/W symmetry
which the company says - is not subject to periodic performance jitter or "periodicity".
Even under constantly changing disk utilization, it delivers uniform,
predictable, and deterministic performance.
"The Kove XPD L2... allows high performance applications to use
storage as a weapon rather than accept it as a handicap," said Kove's
CEO, John
Overton. "We are pleased to set a new bar height for storage
latency."
STEC's RAM SSDs percentage?
Editor:- February 28,
2012 - "Our DRAM-related products accounted for 3% of revenue"
said Raymond Cook, CFO, STEC - in the company's
Q4 2011 - earnings conference.
Kaminario's systems today are mostly flash
Editor:-
February 7, 2012 - Here's an update on the long running
RAM versus
flash transition in enterprise SSD accelerators.
It's about 20 months
since Kaminario
entered the SSD market as a new name in the RAM SSD market - and just 6 months
since the company also started offering flash - as a hybrid or pure alternative
- based on PCIe SSDs from Fusion-io.
Yesterday
I asked Kaminario's VP of marketing - Gareth Taube
how's the flash thing going? And can you tell me and my readers what
proportion of recent system shipments are flash rather than RAM.
He
told me - "I would say we are running about 45% all flash arrays, 45%
Hybrids (but the hybrids are mostly Flash with 10% DRAM) and about 10% all DRAM.
At least that is the way it has been running in the last 2 quarters."
Fusion-io's 1 billion IOPS demo narrows latency gap between flash
and RAM SSDs
Editor:- January 6, 2012 - in a historic
demo
yesterday showing the capabilities of its latency reducing Auto Commit
Memory (ACM) extension Fusion-io
announced it had exceeded 1 billion IOPS (64 byte data packets) in a
configuration which used 8 HP servers each configured with 8x
ioDrive2 Duo PCIe
SSDs.
Editor's comments:- although we're used to thinking about
SSD IOPS in terms of bigger packets - such as 4kB - instead of the very small
packet size in this demo -
IOPS is simply
a convenient and not always reliable way of comparing the relative
performance of storage products.
In real life - users don't have a
choice of what size the R/W operations are which take place in their apps. They
occur at all sizes (mostly smaller than 4kB) and when these R/W operations take
place in traditional storage architecture systems - which internally impose
their own restrictions on the minimum size of atomic data packets - that's where
latencies and performance become discontinuous compared to the value of the data
update due to amplification
and packetization effects.
In my view - the important thing about this
demo - is that the same PCIe SSD product which can perform useful work as a
storage device - can also be deployed as a super scaler memory device - when it
is running the appropriate software.
The difference is that with
traditional storage software - you might expect that a 64x PCIe SSD system might
hit 64M IOPS or some similar figure (regardless of the small size of the data
packet). Instead the demo shows that apps developers can get 16x more
performance in small R/W transactions if they are willing to invest the
effort to make their apps work with FIO's new APIs.
It's that order of
magnitude difference which is the attraction for some markets - because it
closes the gap in performance between
RAM SSDs and flash
SSDs. And when you can run apps 10x faster than other flash competitors at the
same price - or support 10x bigger data sets than competitors using RAM SSDs -
that create new markets. See also:-
Record Breaking
Storage | |
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| Surviving SSD
sudden power loss |
Why should you care
what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?
This important design
feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases
- has a strong impact on
SSD data integrity
and operational
reliability.
This article will help you understand why some
SSDs which (work perfectly well in one type of application) might fail in
others... even when the changes in the operational environment appear to be
negligible. |
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| sometimes you just can't wait | |
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| the Problem with
Write IOPS in flash SSDs |
Random "write IOPS"
in many of the fastest
flash SSDs are now similar to "read IOPS" - implying a
performance symmetry which was once believed to be impossible.
So why
are flash SSD IOPS such a poor predictor of application performance? And why
are users still buying
RAM SSDs which cost an
order of magnitude more than SLC? (let alone
MLC) - even
when the IOPS specs look superficially similar?
This article
tells you why the specs got faster - but the applications didn't. |
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And why competing SSDs with
apparently identical benchmark results can perform completely differently.
...read the
article | | | |
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