Comments on: SSD Flash or DRAM http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html Hu Yoshida, the CTO of Hitachi Data Systems, provides his insight into industry issues, discusses in his own words storage best practices, and provides realistic solutions to real storage needs in today Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:24:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: Captain Conniff http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-54417 Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:00:28 +0000 http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-54417 Hu, In your blog you say that EMC announced "Virtual Partitioning"? Do you mean "Virtual Provisioning"? As in thin provisioning done right, for instance the thin provisioned LUN can be replicated, cloned or integrated into other enterprise functionality that customers desire? Or do you mean dynamic cache partioning? As in the ability to dynamically partition cache for various workloads that can be tuned without having to IML the array? I know that it can be confusing as EMC DMX has so much functionality it's hard to keep up with? Thanks for your blog! Hu,
In your blog you say that EMC announced “Virtual Partitioning”? Do you mean “Virtual Provisioning”? As in thin provisioning done right, for instance the thin provisioned LUN can be replicated, cloned or integrated into other enterprise functionality that customers desire?

Or do you mean dynamic cache partioning? As in the ability to dynamically partition cache for various workloads that can be tuned without having to IML the array? I know that it can be confusing as EMC DMX has so much functionality it’s hard to keep up with?

Thanks for your blog!

]]> by: Paul http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52988 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:57:19 +0000 http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52988 Hu, If HDS would be interested in an alternative to flash ssd, we are developing a non-volatile dram-based enterprise-class SSD designed for seamless integration with storage arrays. It is fundamentally less expensive than a flash approach, has no write limitations and is 8x-10x faster than EMCs quoted performance for the STEC drives. Best, -Paul Hu,

If HDS would be interested in an alternative to flash ssd, we are developing a non-volatile dram-based enterprise-class SSD designed for seamless integration with storage arrays. It is fundamentally less expensive than a flash approach, has no write limitations and is 8x-10x faster than EMCs quoted performance for the STEC drives.

Best,

-Paul

]]> by: Andrey Kuzmin http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52150 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:03:36 +0000 http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52150 > What if you have a write failure in the middle of a database > transaction, where some of the writes have already been committed? Sorry, but this has nothing to do with flash per se: any write within a transaction could fail whatever media database back-end resides on (even RAM), and DBMS MUST be prepared to handle this. As to flash vs. DRAM, the former is superior to the latter in a single but extremely important respect: non-volatility. This, INO, will make flash most welcomed replacement for NVRAM in DBMS and file-system worlds to provide low-latency non-volatile log storage. Regards, Andrey P.S. And thanks for the post, insightful as usually. > What if you have a write failure in the middle of a database
> transaction, where some of the writes have already been committed?
Sorry, but this has nothing to do with flash per se: any write within a transaction could fail whatever media database back-end resides on (even RAM), and DBMS MUST be prepared to handle this.

As to flash vs. DRAM, the former is superior to the latter in a single but extremely important respect: non-volatility. This, INO, will make flash most welcomed replacement for NVRAM in DBMS and file-system worlds to provide low-latency non-volatile log storage.

Regards,
Andrey
P.S. And thanks for the post, insightful as usually.

]]> by: Nick Allen http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52135 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:56:09 +0000 http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52135 Hu: Regarding SMART According to STEC, and the 110 page ZeusIops operating manual, SMART is fully supported today and worn-out/bad pages are reported as bad "sectors" while spare pages are used to replace these bad pages. -Nick Hu:

Regarding SMART

According to STEC, and the 110 page ZeusIops operating manual, SMART is fully supported today and worn-out/bad pages are reported as bad “sectors” while spare pages are used to replace these bad pages.

-Nick

]]> by: Dan Pancamo http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52052 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:26:55 +0000 http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2008/01/ssd_flash_or_dram.html#comment-52052 It's not a question of IF, but WHEN the mechanical drive will come to an end. While EMC's announcement may be mostly a marketing ploy for now, it's working. We want SSD! It’s not a question of IF, but WHEN the mechanical drive will come to an end. While EMC’s announcement may be mostly a marketing ploy for now, it’s working.

We want SSD!

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