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Message-ID: <b42b73150809081659n713b0780w2fe6820aa563b8a0@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 19:59:44 -0400
From: "Merlin Moncure" <mmoncure@gmail.com>
To: "Greg Smith" <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
Subject: Re: Intel's X25-M SSD
Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0809081850050.5786@westnet.com>
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References: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0809081850050.5786@westnet.com>

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 7:12 PM, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote:
> If like me you've been reading all the flash SSD drive reviews that come
> out, you might have also noticed that the performance on write-heavy
> workloads hasn't been too far ahead of traditional drives.  It's typically
> been hit or miss as to whether the SDD would really be all that much faster
> on a real OLTP-ish database workload, compared to a good 10k or 15k drive
> (WD's Velociraptor is the usual comparison drive).
>
> That's over as of today:  http://techreport.com/articles.x/15433/9
>
> You can see what I was talking about above in their Database graph: under
> heavy load, the Velociraptor pulls ahead of even a good performing flash
> product (Samsung's FlashSSD), and the latency curve on the next page shows
> something similar.  But the Intel drive is obviously a whole different class
> of SSD implementation altogether.  It's not clear yet if that's because of
> their NCQ support, or maybe the firmware just buffers writes better (they
> should have tested with NCQ disabled to nail that down).

What's interesting about the X25 is that they managed to pull the
numbers they got out of a MLC flash product.  They managed this with a
DRAM buffer and the custom controller.  Their drive is top dollar for
a MLC product but also provides top notch performance (again, for a
MLC product).

The Intel SLC flash products, also due to be out in '08 are what are
most likely of interest to database folks.  I suspect prices will
quickly drop and you will start hearing about flash in database
environents increasingly over the next year or two.  We are only a
round or two of price cuts before flash starts looking competitive vs
15k sas products in light of all the advantages.   This will spur
price cuts on high margin server product drives, which will also cut
r&d budgets.  I'll stick to the predictions I made several months
ago...flash will quickly replace drives in most environments outside
of mass storage, with significant market share by 2010.  I think the
SSD manufacturers made a tactical error chasing the notebook market
when they should have been chasing the server market...but in the end
the result will be the same.

This should mean really interesting things to the database world.

merlin