Drill Down

1
EDITORS NOTE
2
FOUR USE CASES WHEN
SSD ARRAYS ARE THE
RIGHT SOLUTION
3
FIND THE BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD STORAGE
4
WHEN USING SSD
IS A BAD IDEA
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Deciding Where to Deploy
Solid-State Storage Devices
Solid state storage can be deployed in a storage array alongside traditional
hard disk drives, as an all-ash array, as a separate caching appliance, or
in the a server using a PCIe card. Each approach has pros and cons which
must be weighed before deploying a solution.
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
2 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
1
EDITORS NOTE

Where to Deploy Flash
Enterprise-class flash storage is
kind of a tech Wild West right now. Theres
a lot going on and the technology is not fully
matured. Standards are emerging now, but
there is a lot of proprietary stuff on the market,
many of the vendors are small start-ups that
may fail or be bought by bigger storage compa-
nies, and there are a number of places you can
deploy asheach with its own benets and
drawbacks.
You cant do much about the rst two issues
except to wait for things to shake out. However,
you can and should be strategic about where
you deploy ash in your environment.
Probably the most obvious way to deploy
ash is using an HDD form factor solid-state
drive. These are used in some storage arrays
todaythese can be all-ash arrays or hybrid
arrays with ash alongside traditional hard
drives. Another option is to use HDD form
factor ash SSDs as Tier 0 storage in a multi-
tier NAS or storage array. You can also deploy
ash in a cache appliance that sits in front of
an existing storage array. These appliances may
employ PCIe or HDD form factor ash. Finally,
you can deploy PCIe ash SSD storage cards as
cache or storage in the server, or as cache in a
storage system.
In this Drill Down on where to deploy solid-
state storage, discover the pros and cons of all
these options, effective use cases for solid-
state storage, and examples of when ash is not
the right tool for the job. If you are considering
investing in solid state storage, this Drill Down
is great place to start. n
Andrew Burton
Senior Site Editor, SearchSolidStateStorage.com
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
3 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
2
FOUR USE CASES
Four Use Cases When SSD Arrays
Are the Right Solution
SSD arrays are often called Tier 0, SSD
tier, or cache tier. An SSD array solves the I/O
problem of aggregate throughput without re-
sorting to massive numbers of spindles and in-
efciently populated HDDs.
All-SSD storage arrays are often overlooked
in their own right. These standalone devices
provide additional benets, such as optimized
data location and the exibility of device-
independent deployment. They do add a group
of devices to be managed, so the benets must
outweigh the added administration and main-
tenance. Here are four use cases where an SSD
array might be just the right solution.
n Use case #1: Front end-virtualized for inter-
nal cloud storage. Organizations reduce costs
by increasingly using lower-cost Tier 3 (SATA)
storage, especially for internal clouds. Unfor-
tunately, the throughput of these high-capac-
ity, low-performance drives may not deliver
sufcient I/O. In these situations, IT man-
agers should consider solid-state arrays and
automated-tiering software to manage the data
movement between tiers.
n Use case #2: Data location for le services.
Global organizations using common les to
collaborate can use SSD arrays to position the
data geographically or simply elevate it to the
fastest tier for maximum throughput. Large
les typically used in geographic dispersed col-
laboration that would greatly benet from SSD
acceleration include engineering documents or
video development les. For Internet content
providers, this may include video les, music
les or other downloads.
n Use case #3: VDI boot storms. Many orga-
nizations boot virtual desktop infrastructure
(VDI) servers from network storage to ensure a
common image, as well as simplify updates and
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
4 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
2
FOUR USE CASES
maintenance. With standard HDD arrays, the
resulting trafc jam during rush hours yields
sufciently poor performance that some orga-
nizations shied away from the practice. SSDs
exceptional recursive read performance makes
it a perfect way to beat the boot storm.
n Use case #4: Hybrid cloud. Hosting infre-
quently used information on public cloud stor-
age can be an excellent way to reduce the cost
of maintaining this data. However, the latency
of this conguration may be unacceptable. By
positioning an SSD array in the home data cen-
ter to cache hot data from the remote cloud,
IT organizations can have the best of both
worldson-premises high-performance stor-
age and massive storage capacity offsite. Of
course, the network interconnect requires re-
dundancy to ensure full availability.
In all implementations, SSD solves the
I/O data-delivery problem. The trick to get-
ting the desired results is determining exactly
where that problem exists. Moreover, simply
increasing aggregate data throughput without
considering possible countervailing latency in-
troduced by network connections may result in
a lot of money spent without a lot of gain.
If the potential uses of Tier 0 and SSD arrays
sound similar, they are. The difference between
them is data location. When devices are within
the same data center, Tier 0 is likely to fulll
the requirements without adding more devices
to manage. While SSD arrays can also meet the
performance requirements within data centers,
they are most applicable for facilitating rapid
data access when devices are geographically di-
verse. So, it boils down to two considerations:
time and distance. Address those two consider-
ations and youre on the way to the right deci-
sion. Phil Goodwin
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
5 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD

Find the Best Spot for Flash SSD Storage
There are six different ash SSD stor-
age implementations today. Each is primarily
aimed at reducing latency, improving perfor-
mance in IOPS and throughput, while second-
arily aimed at reducing storage total cost of
ownership (TCO).
PCIE FLASH CARDS AS
SERVER CACHE OR STORAGE
Putting the ash SSD PCIe card locally in the
server on the PCIe bus puts the cache closer to
the application. There are no adapters, trans-
ceivers, network cables, switches or storage
controllers in the path. The short distance re-
duces latency, speeding up all I/O operations.
This is why these cards are typically called
application accelerators instead of storage ac-
celerators. This type of ash SSD is primarily
block-based. When used as cache, it requires
additional software that relies upon policies to
move data into and out of the cache, such as
rst-in, rst-out.
n Pros: Lowest latencies between applications
and storage or storage caching. Makes a sig-
nicant, noticeable and quantiable difference
for high-transactional and high-performance
applications, such as online transaction pro-
cessing (OLTP), online analytical processing
(OLAP), graphics rendering, genome processing
and protein analysis.
n Cons: High CPU resource use, ranging from
5% to 25%. It has relatively low capacities,
although the Fusion-io Inc. ioDriveOctal has
10 TB per card in a double-wide PCIe device.
Cards are not shareable among multiple physi-
cal servers without additional options such as
SanDisk Corp.s FlashSoft caching software or
QLogic Corp.s FabricCache QLE10000 Fibre
Channel host bus adapter.
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
6 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD
Each physical server requires one or more
cards. Not useful for virtual servers except as
cache with caching software because virtual
machine (VM) portability and resilience re-
quires shared storage. Caching software licens-
ing is on a per-physical-server basis. Most of
the caching software is block storage, making it
somewhat useless in le based storage or appli-
cations. Intel Corp.s Intel Cache Acceleration
Software is the exception. Card management is
on a per-card basis, increasing administrator
management tasks resulting in a high TCO.
n Best ts: Well-suited for high-performance
computing clusters where performance im-
provements in nanoseconds to microseconds
are huge. Other solid ts include OLTP, OLAP,
business intelligence, social media, genome
processing, protein processing, graphics ren-
dering, security, facial recognition and seismic
processing.
PCIE FLASH CARDS AS SAN OR NAS CACHE
PCIe ash SSD storage cards provide stor-
age systems a lower-cost, higher-capacity
and slightly less-performing extension of the
systems DRAM. Its a storage accelerator. Al-
gorithms determine less frequently accessed
data, which is quickly moved from the systems
DRAM to the ash PCIe SSD cache. The PCIe
SSD cache acts as an extension of the DRAM.
Administrators set policies for these caches,
determining what type of data should be re-
tained or pinned in ash cache (data not
evicted from the cache). The use of PCIe ash
SSDs as cache reduces latency to and from the
storage system by reducing disk I/O when sat-
isfying read requests and, in the case of NAS,
metadata as well.
n Pros: Reduces latencies from applications to
shared storage. It works well with virtual serv-
ers, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), VM
portability, and VM resilience. Its shareable
among physical and virtual servers and requires
no server resources.
n Cons: Flash cache is size-limited by available
storage system PCIe slots. Users experience in-
creased latencies and excessive response times
because more frequent cache misses require
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
7 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD
requests to get the data from the HDDs. Any
given storage systems ash cache cannot be
shared by any other storage system without
separate physical or software solutions. The
most severe performance bottleneck is most
often the storage systems CPU. As CPU uti-
lization elevates, so does latency and user re-
sponse times. Using a PCIe SSD as a SAN or
NAS cache tends to have an expensive TCO.
n Best ts: Well-suited for virtual servers and
VDI. Good at providing a boost to heavy traf-
c applications such as Microsoft Exchange.
It does well at accelerating databases when in-
dexes and hot les can be pinned to the cache.
SSD FLASH AS STORAGE ARRAY CACHE
HDD form factor ash SSD storage cache is
functionally similar to PCIe ash SSD storage
as cache. Its a storage accelerator with similar
algorithms. Instead of going into the controller
as PCIe SSD cards do, HDD form factor SSDs
go behind the storage controller in HDD slots.
Sitting behind the controller means higher ca-
pacities but higher latencies.
n Pros: Reduces latency from applications to
shared storage. Works well with virtual servers,
VM portability, and VM resilience. Its share-
able among multiple physical and virtual serv-
ers while consuming no server resources. It has
lower TCO per GB than the PCIe form factor.
n Cons: Capacities are larger than PCIe ash
SSDs, but limited by both ash SSD capacities
and disk-controller performance limitations.
Users experience increased latencies and exces-
sive response times because cache misses oc-
cur more frequently, redirecting requests to the
HDDs. A storage systems ash cache cannot
be shared by any other storage system without
separate physical or software solutions. The
most severe performance bottleneck is com-
monly the storage controller, which increases
latency and user response times.
n Best ts: Well-suited for virtual servers and
VDI. Good at providing a boost to virtual envi-
ronments and heavy trafc applications, such
as Microsoft Exchange. It does a good job at ac-
celerating databases when indexes and hot les
can be pinned to the cache.
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
8 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD
SSD FLASH AS TIER 0 STORAGE
Tier 0 storage is similar to HDD form factor
ash SSD storage as cache. The difference is in
how the HDD form factor ash SSD is treated.
It makes ash function as the high-perfor-
mance storage tier or the storage location for
the hottest accessed data. It is also designated
as the target for data associated with applica-
tions requiring very quick response times and
low latency. As the data on Tier 0 ages and ac-
cess becomes less frequent, auto-tiering soft-
ware moves the data to a lower-performing,
lower-cost HDD storage tier.
n Pros: Reduces latencies from applications
to shared storage. It works well with virtual
servers, VM portability and VM resilience. Its
shareable among multiple physical and virtual
servers. It requires no server resources. It has
lower TCO per GB than the PCIe form factor. It
can redistribute workloads in a manner that re-
duces the total number of HDDs without com-
promising performance or capacity. Capacity is
shifted to slower higher capacity HDDs while
performance requirements are pointed at Tier
0 HDD form factor ash SSDs.
n Cons: Capacities are limited similarly to
HDD form factor ash SSD cache. As work-
ing sets grow along with general data growth,
there is diminishing ability for that limited
Tier 0 to keep up with demand. More applica-
tions and users will be pointed at slower stor-
age tiers. Users experience increased latencies
and excessive response times. Similar to other
implementations, HDD form factor ash SSDs
only benet the storage system in which they
are installed. The most severe performance
bottleneck is commonly the storage control-
ler, increasing latency and user response times.
Auto-tiering software, which can be costly,
adds to the storage systems controller utiliza-
tion load, further impinging on performance.
Auto-tiering software tends to move data only
in a downward direction (Dell Corp.s Compel-
lent Automatic Tiered and X-IO Technologies
Hyper ISE are distinct exceptions).
n Best ts: Well-suited for virtual servers and
VDI. Good at providing a boost to heavy trafc
applications such as Microsoft Exchange. They
are good at accelerating databases where indexes
and hot les are never moved out of Tier 0.
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
9 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD
SSD FLASH AS ALL-SSD ARRAY
Implementing a pure-HDD form factor all-
ash SSD storage system provides much lower
latencies, and higher IOPS and throughput
while eliminating caching or tiering require-
ments. All-SSD storage systems have enor-
mous performance and simplicity appeal. Most
leverage SSD performance to include some
form of data reduction, such as deduplication
and lossless compression. System and ash
speed are fast enough that applications and us-
ers typically dont notice the additional data
reduction latency.
n Pros: Reduces latencies from applications to
shared storage. Having only one storage tier
eliminates complicated storage tiering soft-
ware. Works well with virtual servers, VM
portability, and VM resilience and shareable
among multiple physical and virtual serv-
ers, consuming no server resources. HDD
elimination prominently reduces power and
cooling. Combining power and cooling savings
with data reduction capacity savings provides a
net-effective GB TCO in line with many HDD
storage systems, whereas cost per IOPS or
throughput is conspicuously better.
n Cons: Scalability tends to be limited to less
than 500 TB raw storage and some cases, much
less (SolidFire Inc.s storage system is an excep-
tion that scales to a petabyte of raw storage).
The bottleneck with this type of storage system
is the storage controller utilization. As control-
ler utilization elevates, so does latency and user
response times.
n Best ts: Well-suited for virtual server and
VDI environments. Good at providing a boost
to virtual environments and heavy trafc ap-
plications such as Microsoft Exchange. It
does a good job at accelerating databases. Any
Implementing a pure-HDD form factor all-ash SSD storage system
provides much lower latencies, and higher IOPS and throughput while
eliminating caching or tiering requirements.
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
1 0 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD
application requiring a lot of performance and
capacity thats more than can be found in either
caching or tiering is a good t. Data centers
with limited power and cooling availability are
also a good t.
PCIE CARDS OR SSD FLASH IN A
NETWORKED CACHING APPLIANCE
Caching appliances sit non-disruptively on the
storage network logically between clients and
the storage systems.
Caching appliances are primarily read and
metadata for NAS only. They are loaded up
with either PCIe ash card SSDs or HDD form
factor SSDs. Capacities tend to be less than
30 TB. These appliances are purpose-built for
caching.
There are four different types of caching
appliances:
1. Dumb (severely limited storage system
software such as snapshot, thin provi-
sioning, data reduction, replication, etc.)
non-app aware block-based acceleration ap-
proach (Violin Memory Inc., Texas Memory
Systems (now IBM), EMC Corp. Thunder,
and Astute Networks Inc.).
2. File-based dumb non-app aware variation
(Avere Systems Inc.).
3. IP network intelligent packet inspection
that caches appropriate data to the appli-
ance (CacheIQ, now part of NetApp Inc.).
4. File-based application read and metadata
acceleration caching appliance (Alacritech
Inc.s ANX 1500 acceleration appliance
and NetApps Storage Acceleration appli-
ances). Files are stored on the appliance
based on read frequency. As frequency
declines, theyre removed. Metadata is
also kept on the appliance. Typically, this
type of caching produces the lowest le
latencies.
n Pros: Reduces latencies from applications
to shared storage. Caching appliances are the
most leverageable and shareable with physi-
cal servers, virtual servers and multiple storage
systems. The le-based application read and
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
1 1 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
3
BEST SPOT
FOR FLASH SSD
metadata acceleration approach reduces NFS
and TCP/IP latencies, making both the reads
and metadata a lot faster.
All the appliance types reduce controller
load on the back-end storage systems, enabling
more back-end storage controller cycles for
modern-day storage functions, which impro-
ves overall performance. TCO tends to be the
lowest with this type of ash SSD while the
cost per IOPS or throughput is equivalent.
n Cons: Scalability tends to be less than 10 TB
raw storage in some cases. It is another system
that sits between servers and storage, making
troubleshooting a bit more complicated. For le
caching, it works better with NFS than CIFS.
n Best ts: Well-suited for virtual server and
VDI. Ideal for lowering overall storage costs
while increasing IOPS and throughput. Good t
for HPC (block), rendering (le), genome and
protein sequencing.
One nal note: One size or type of ash stor-
age does not t all. Be prepared to implement
different ash storage variations to solve dif-
ferent problems and application requirements.
Marc Staimer
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
1 2 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
4
BAD SOLID-STATE
STORAGE USES

When Using SSD Is a Bad Idea
Solid-state storage (SSS) has estab-
lished its position in the data center. Nearly all
major vendors specify a Tier 0 in their best-
practice architectures. Companies are using
server-side solid-state disks (SSDs) to enhance
server performance, and storage-side SSDs
eliminates boot-storm bottlenecks. As with
most technologies, its as important to know
when not to use it as it is when to use it. Here
are some cases where not to use solid-state
storage.
n Dont use SSS when applications are not
read-intensive. Solid-state storage is brilliant
for read-access times. It can outperform HDD
by 10X or more. There is no free lunch, how-
ever, as SSS loses all its benets in the write
category. Writes not only lag, they also wear
out the SSS memory cells. Memory cells have
an average write life after which the cells begin
to burn out (see your vendor for details of its
specic system). As cells fail, overall perfor-
mance degrades. Eventually, the SSS must be
replaced to restore full performance and we all
know SSS is not cheap. Some vendors do offer
extensive warranties.
So what is the magic line for a read/write
ratio? There probably isnt one, but start with
90/10 as ideal. Application requirements may
dictate a compromise in this regard, but know-
ing permits IT managers to make a conscious
decision. If the ratio is below 50/50, then obvi-
ously an HDD would be a better choice.
Here, from an application performance per-
spective, the SSS read performance is offset by
the inferior write performance.
Finally, if SSS is needed for read performance
but writes are an issue, consider some of the
vendors that employ wear-leveling mecha-
nisms and minimize write-amplication to
reduce the impact. Solid-state storage size is
also a factor. Going cheap on the SSS increases
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
1 3 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
4
BAD SOLID-STATE
STORAGE USES
thrashing as it reduces the chances of a recur-
sive read.
n Dont use SSS when data access is highly
random. SSS is sometime referred to as cache-
tier and the name is apropos. Fundamentally,
it is a cache that eliminates the need to per-
form a fetch to a hard-drive when the data is
cache-resident. Applications with highly ran-
dom access requirements simply wont benet
from SSSthe array controller directs the read
to the HDD and the SSS becomes an expense
with little benet.
n Dont use general-purpose SSS in highly
virtualized environments. OK, this one will
generate some controversy because there are
some really good use cases for SSS with virtual
machines (VMs), such as boot storms. However,
many VMs accessing the same SSS results in
highly random data patterns, at least from a sto-
rage perspective. When hundreds of VMs are
reading and writing from the same storage, one
machine is constantly over-writing the other.
However, there are SSS solutions designed spe-
cically for virtual environments, which is why
theres a general purpose caveat.
n Dont use server-side SSS for solving storage
I/O bottlenecks. Server-side SSS is fundamen-
tally server cache, which solves a processing
problem and even a network bandwidth prob-
lem. Spreading SSS across hundreds of physi-
cal servers, equipping each server with its own
SSS, may indeed help with I/O bottlenecks, but
its not nearly as effective as the same aggre-
gate capacity in a storage tier.
n Dont use Tier 0 for solving network bottle-
necks. If the network inhibits data delivery, its
obvious that optimizing the storage system be-
hind the network does little good. Server-side
SSS may reduce the need to access the storage
system and reduce the network demand.
If the network inhibits data delivery, its obvious that optimizing
the storage system behind the network does little good.
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
14 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
4
BAD SOLID-STATE
STORAGE USES
n Dont deploy consumer-grade SSS for
enterprise applications. SSD is manufactured
in four grades: single-layer cell (SLC), multi-
layer cell (MLC), enterprise multi-layer cell
(eMLC) and triple-layer cell (TLC). MLC is
considered consumer-grade ash and found
in most off-the-shelf applications. It has a life
span of 3,000-10,000 write operations per cell.
TLC is also considered consumer-grade ash,
but its life span is even shorter than MLC, with
only 800 to 1,000 write operations per cell.
SLC, or enterprise-grade, has a life of up
to 100,000 write operations per cell. eMLC
attempts to strike a balance between price and
performance, offering around 30,000 writes
per cell but at a lower price point than SLC.
Caveat emptor, as you get what you pay for.
Phil Goodwin
Home
Editors Note
Four Use Cases
When SSD Arrays
Are the Right
Solution
Find the Best
Spot for Flash
SSD Storage
When Using SSD
Is a Bad Idea
1 5 DECI DI NG WHERE TO DEPLOY SOLI D- STATE STORAGE DEVI CES
PHIL GOODWIN is a storage consultant and freelance
writer.
MARC STAIMER is the founder, senior analyst and CDS of
Dragon Slayer Consulting in Beaverton, Ore. Marc can
be contacted at marcstaimer@comcast.net.
ABOUT
THE
AUTHORS
Deciding Where to Deploy Solid-State Storage Devices
is a SearchSolidStateStorage.com e-publication.
Rich Castagna | Editorial Director
Andrew Burton | Senior Site Editor
Ed Hannan | Managing Editor
John Hilliard | Associate Site Editor
Todd Erickson | Features Writer
Linda Koury | Director of Online Design
Neva Maniscalco | Graphic Designer
Jillian Abbott | Publisher
jabbott@techtarget.com
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