RAID setup 2009 Mac Pro

[DoFoT9]

For a database, 4k makes sense. Some of the newer SSD controllers have gone to 4k operation internally, such as the SandForce.

you have just lifted my hopes and dreams about SSDs thank god for that. if only you could make it a variable amount. are said drives costly?

I wouldn't think so, unless SLC based models are used. Unfortunately, they're still really pricey and may not be an option for this reason.

thats true - the 2TB 3.5" SSDs are rediculous!

 

[nanofrog]

you have just lifted my hopes and dreams about SSDs thank god for that. if only you could make it a variable amount. are said drives costly?

Check out the SandForce based units. They're not exactly cheap, but smaller capacity models are attainable.

 

[DoFoT9]

Check out the SandForce based units. They're not exactly cheap, but smaller capacity models are attainable.

very good! i shall look into it for investments further down the track.

 

[tragically]

As in a Host Company?
Or a consultant created the design, and the equipment is owned and operated by your company (physically on-site)?

I presume you mean it's hosted (dedictated equipment that's leased from an off-site company), but I'm just looking for clarification, as I've seen both.

We use various to tell you the truth. Some we own, some dedicated and some is virtual. (A lot is virtual - easier to bring up systems and restart, etc, but the hardware is a complete mystery and they often won't even tell you.) All hardware is managed either by the hosting our a partner they deal with.

For a database, 4k makes sense. Some of the newer SSD controllers have gone to 4k operation internally, such as the SandForce.

BTW, are you doing this type of work with your own system you've been inquiring about?

I do my development on a MacPro, as I'm actually an outside consultant. I was definitely looking at SandForce, as it appears to be the best design for the Mac. Part of this is to speed my system up, especially as I have so many things on the go at once and I like to easily switch back and forth. But, the other part is to also see what the software we built could do with an SSD. (And, the fact I can write it all off ;-) ) For the DB we've built, we've actually sped up a lot of the real-time interaction by simply using an in-memory database and not persisting to disk at all, not until later. We use k-safe number of replicated nodes to ensure data isn't lost - but it's not on all the time. Protecting using an SSD is something that I wanted to look at... just wanted to see it on my MacPro and understand the speed improvements I can get. For example - my macBook pro is an older 4,1 model and has the SATA stuck at 1.5Gb/s! The firmware to fix it doesn't seem to apply to mine either... which kind of makes it almost not worth getting an SSD for that.

For Oracle - DB block size is configurable and you can use 4K for extremely randomly accessed data. However, on Mysql (using innodb) it is not and it's 16K. (I think you can re-compile it differently... never done it though.) Still - having the most IOPS for a lot of DBs is more important than the sequential bandwidth. Unless you're doing data warehouse type queries - long range or full scan queries that will scan a large portion of the file.

utilising SSDs isnt really a likely scenario for you is it? given write amplifications and whatnot..

That's what I always thought. I know there are a lot of DBAs and vendors starting to use SSDs in Oracle on the redo logs. These are the disks that get written for each commit no matter how small. These are often written to 3 physically different disks and those are often RAID1. (Lose those and the DBA generally loses his job!) If you have an update intensive application, you can really speed up your transactions per second by moving to SSD. For production servers, it's definitely SLC - I know one place, you can lease 64GB for $100 a month on your dedicated server. And - if it starts to slow down - have them replace it!

 

[nanofrog]

We use various to tell you the truth. Some we own, some dedicated and some is virtual. (A lot is virtual - easier to bring up systems and restart, etc, but the hardware is a complete mystery and they often won't even tell you.) All hardware is managed either by the hosting our a partner they deal with.

Sounds like a bit of a mess.

That's what I always thought. I know there are a lot of DBAs and vendors starting to use SSDs in Oracle on the redo logs. These are the disks that get written for each commit no matter how small. These are often written to 3 physically different disks and those are often RAID1. (Lose those and the DBA generally loses his job!) If you have an update intensive application, you can really speed up your transactions per second by moving to SSD. For production servers, it's definitely SLC - I know one place, you can lease 64GB for $100 a month on your dedicated server. And - if it starts to slow down - have them replace it!

You'd want to look at SLC based drives for sure. Most of the PCIe Flash cards are SLC (i.e. Fusion IO products), and can run faster than a SATA based SSD (even 6.0Gb/s). Expensive, but built for what you're wanting to do.