Layer3

Adventures in Networking, Routing, Switching, Virtualization, Storage, etc.

Archive for the ‘Storage’ Category

Blade server local storage debate (SSD or SAS)

Posted by Chris on August 6, 2009

I found myself pulled into a design debate at the office this afternoon.

It centered on whether or not we should be using SSD’s as the boot drives for new blade installations.

SSD’s seem like a good idea at first glance;

Fewer moving parts = increased reliability
Greener solution – requires less power
Generates less heat
Quieter

But when you see what Dell is charging for SSD’s for the m710 blade you’ll likely have second thoughts.

m710_hdd_opt

Considering these prices, I’d be better off going with a hardware initiator and booting directly from the SAN.

Looks like we’re staying with a RAID1 SAS configuration for now.

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