[TriLUG] SSD-based NFS servers for production - ready for primetime?

[Michael Rothwell]

Although it is not really available for Linux, a ZFS-based NFS server may
be a good option for you. You can add SSDs as L2ARC cache and log devices
on top of spinning disks. The system will use the SSDs for increased
read/write performance, but will not crash if/when the SSDs die; it will
just stop using them and fall back to disks (and system memory) only.

-M
On Jan 15, 2012 1:08 PM, "Ron Kelley" <rkelleyrtp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings all,
>
> I need to add some NFS horsepower to our production network and find
> myself at a crossroads.  Our current NFS servers each have 8x Seagate 1TB
> 7200-RPM SATA drives hooked to Areca ARC1220 controllers.  They have been
> very stable/reliable over the past few years but the drives are starting to
> die off (3-4yrs @ 24/7 operation).  In addition, we have added more NFS
> clients to the mix (combination of ESX servers and CentOS clients) which
> has pushed the NFS servers to the point of I/O starvation.
>
> I have been scouring the 'net looking for information about spinning
> drives vs SSDs in an enterprise NFS deployment.  After a ton of research, I
> am torn between the 10K-RPM/15KRPM 2.5" Seagate drives and the Intel 510
> SSDs.  The SSDs would certainly fix the performance issue, but I am
> concerned they won't last as long especially given the large number of
> writes our NFS servers perform.  I know the 510s are not "enterprise grade"
> SSDs, but Anandtech and Tom's hardware has some very glowing reviews for
> them.  Here is a good link to a Tom's article from July 2011 about SSD
> reliability:
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html
>
> As for the configuration, I will put them in a 6-drive RAID-5 array using
> Linux software RAID.  If a drive fails, we can easily swap it out with
> another spare on the shelf.  And, as for space, we need about 1.5T of
> usable NFS space to store VMDKs and other high-sensitive items.
>
> Does anyone have an opinion or real-life experience as to the reliability
> of SSD drives in an enterprise setting?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> -----------------------------
> Ron Kelley
> rkelleyrtp at gmail.com
>
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