Migrating server storage to SSDs: analysis of tradeoffs

Recently, flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) have become standard options for laptop and desktop storage, but their impact on enterprise server storage has not been studied. Provisioning server storage is challenging. It requires optimizing for the performance, capacity, power and reliability needs of the expected workload, all while minimizing financial costs. In this paper we analyze a number of workload traces from servers in both large and small data centers, to decide whether and how SSDs should be used to support each. We analyze both complete replacement of disks by SSDs, as well as use of SSDs as an intermediate tier between disks and DRAM. We describe an automated tool that, given device models and a block-level trace of a workload, determines the least-cost storage configuration that will support the workload’s performance, capacity, and fault-tolerance requirements. We found that replacing disks by SSDs is not a costeffective option for any of our workloads, due to ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: EUROSYS
• Authors: Dushyanth Narayanan, Eno Thereska, Austin Donnelly, Sameh Elnikety, Antony I. T. Rowstron
• Keywords: EUROSYS 2009, Low-power Sata Disks, SSD Capacity, System Software, Workload Traces