OpenEdge DB and SSD's...

S

stephenpyle

New Member
So is anyone trying Solid State Disks for their DB?

The only advice I am digging up is with using them for the BI and TMP files... Anyone have anything to add to this?

Thanks

Stephen
 
Why do you want to use an SSD? (That's a serious question.)

If it is because of performance issues then there are probably much more effective ways to solve your problems. (The "disk" is multiple layers away from where the data is used. It is thus the least effective place to apply RAM to a performance problem -- which isn't to say that it won't help, just that it won't help as much as other uses could.)

If it is because it is a neat technology that would be fun to try that's ok too ;)

I'm not currently aware of anyone who is using these drives. (Especially not in a large scale production environment.) But I expect that to change soon. Not because I think they are some sort of magic bullet but because, like multi-core chips, they are going to become increasingly available on commodity systems.
 
We are looking at building a new server and my director is asking me if it would help performance.

On the low cost end, I have read desktop reviews talking about bad firmware causing slowdowns over time and other problems so I wasn't high on the idea... I am sure some more "higher end" products would be more reliable but I am still weary of the tech.

Putting the BI and other TMP files on it seems like something we could try - was hoping to at least find someone trying that.
 
It may help but doubt that it will be a silver bullet.

It is much better to address both BI file and temp file IO by doing everything possible to make the IOs not happen in the first place ;) That generally involves a combination of allocating the maximum amount of RAM to buffers and caches that are close to the db engine (-B, -Bt, -mmax, -l, -TB, -TM and so forth) and focusing on problem code and cleaning it up.

Eventually you still have to do IO ops and when you do a proper disk subsystem is a big help. If your entire db will fit on an SSD then that should certainly be faster than the current reigning champion of RAID10 but, for most people, that is not currently a viable option.

I'd be extra careful to have a good strong backup plan and pay special attention to my after-image files though. The long-term behavior of SSD being used as a db drive is unknown and I think there is good reason to be cautious. Write performance on those drives is being improved through some fairly exotic techniques that might not hold up well over time. (Of course they might also work just fine -- my point is that there isn't much experience to judge by.) The techniques being used to get around the limits on number of writes are similar -- maybe they'll be fine over time but I'd keep a watchful eye on things.
 
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