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VPS with SSD disks: Important to you, or no?
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VPS with SSD disks: Important to you, or no?

DamianDamian Member
edited August 2012 in Providers

Doing some market research here.

Are SSDs powering your VPS an important factor to you? Are you willing to pay the price premium? Do you expect your SSD VPS to have a lot of disk space too?

I have intentionally skirted around asking about specific virtualization techs.

So what are your thoughts?

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Comments

  • telephonetelephone Member
    edited August 2012

    1TB SSD for everyone :)

    Honestly it doesn't matter on the basic side of hosting (web), and generally I can't tell the difference (unless it's really slowing down).

    I do like the idea of an SSD cache on the server...

    Thanked by 2Damian HalfEatenPie
  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    If I am running database-intensive website - than yes, it is important. Otherwise, 50MB/s IO is plenty of IO for me and can do absolutely everything with it.

  • Nick_ANick_A Member, Top Host, Host Rep

    Our most common request is more space. Many potential clients turned away for that reason. Take it as you will.

  • @Nick_A said: Our most common request is more space.

    This makes a great argument for SSD caching, but re-educating clients is a huge roadblock.

    Thanked by 2Damian Mon5t3r
  • SSD - Leb, no.
    SAS - Leb, yes.

    15K would be Ideal, but 10K will be fine for most I presume. :-)

    Thanked by 2Damian tux
  • flyfly Member
    edited August 2012

    no. people are confused about disk performance, and all they see are the dd numbers. as your 50cent vps proved, you don't need high dd numbers for good disk performance. Also, IIRC continuous db read/write (the kind that would really justify higher r/w numbers) would decrease the life of the ssd pretty quickly anyways.

    also +1 for sas

    Thanked by 1Damian
  • SSD VPSs are often overpriced and have too little disk space, while a large RAID array with SSD cache can provide simular performance.

  • No, I like my storage.

    Thanked by 1Damian
  • @dmmcintyre3 said: SSD VPSs are often overpriced and have too little disk space, while a large RAID array with SSD cache can provide simular performance.

    I think I'm gonna take one of the best I/O VPS (one from ramnode) and the price is lil' compared to antoher VPS that mainly offer SSD's. But as Nick_A says the problem is with space (<10GB-15GB) which sometimes can't be enough. In my opinion SSDs are good if you have enough ram and bandwith to may "enjoy" those babies :)

  • Prefer SSD's - Why?

    REALLY quick updating if you have a decent connection to a mirror, for instance, my Iperweb VPS updates from a reinstall (takes like 12 seconds) every single package, in around 30 seconds, compared to some, which take a minute -> 5.

    I wouldnt pay more just to get SSD's but I'd prefer it if the provider was using SSD's :'}

  • I would like to post some crazy io from SSDVirt after this :

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=iotest bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync && rm -rf iotest
    16384+0 records in
    16384+0 records out
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.41549 s, 759 MB/s
    
  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep
    edited August 2012

    @Alex_LiquidHost said: If I am running database-intensive website - than yes, it is important

    Perhaps you shouldn't be running it on a vps with alot of other users?

    To me its not that important when looking for a LEB.
    it also depends on what purpose I have when looking for a vps, storage or website or webapp.

  • If I can pick up an SSD plan with better IO (if I don't need a massive amount of disk space) I probably will.

    SSD Caching is another good option, but most hosts don't go into much detail about what it is/how it benefits the customer.

  • @MikHo said: Perhaps you shouldn't be running it on a vps with alot of other users?

    That is very close to saying "you get what you pay for", and I think most at LET know that is a false statement.

  • johnjohn Member
    edited August 2012

    @fly said: Also, IIRC continuous db read/write (the kind that would really justify higher r/w numbers) would decrease the life of the ssd pretty quickly anyways.

    SSDs have come a long way since they were first released. Life expectancy is no longer a major concern when managed correctly. Even when SSDs do fail, they fail more gracefully than HDDs, entering a read-only mode but no data loss. Here is a quote from funkywizard (IOFLOOD) on WHT

    funkywizard on WHT said: SMART tools will provide you with a metric showing the wear level as a percentage-remaining. The lowest we've seen this metric on any server is 97, and that was for a server that had been doing minecraft hosting for nearly a year which just beats the drives to death with random writes. So if a nearly worst-case scenario load level can only take out 3% of the write lifespan in a year, and we've had only one maybe-failure for a couple dozen drives in 2 years, yeah, I'll consider that at least as reliable as regular hard drives.

    I believe @Nick_A also does Minecraft hosting. Perhaps he can weigh in on this.

  • TazTaz Member

    Hell, most of the average vps users barely use above 60-70. Lets break it, if you need application hosting, Amazon and daddy G (Google) already has app hosting platforms for almost free, if you need crazy IO, most likely you will need more CPU and ram. If so, you are most likely not going to fund all the goodies under 7$. No 7$ no Leb.

  • Is it needed by most customers? Likely not. A lot of people buy more than they need and use hardly any of their allocated resources, especially when talking about those who aren't as tech savvy.

    In a saturated market full very similar services, it's a headache browsing LEB provider's sites as there isn't much to differentiate "provider A" from "XYZ provider" and "123provider" is slightly different as well. Most of the providers here are more or less the same, granted a few exceptions.

    So, you guys may not buy into it that SSD nodes are worthwhile, understandable. Most of you know what you need to power your sites and realize you may not need the benefits of SSD or you simply need more storage or the cost isn't worthwhile. But, your average random customer thinks their wordpress blog is going to be the next big thing on the internet and they want what they think their site deserves, which is the 'best' service to sustain it. Most customers nowadays seem to realize they don't need a ton of storage but they still want whatever they think is 'best', and a properly worded product page will describe to them just why SSD virtual servers are better for their site than old spinning disks. ;)

    In short, I think it's important.

  • If the storage is fast enough to do the basics, then I don't care if it's hosted on a RAID array of USB pen drives, an old IDE drive, an SSD, or anything in between.

  • What about the impact of user that uses a decent amount of IO on a node compared to someone that doesn't. SSD should lessen the impact to the rest sharing that node?

  • @Taz_NinjaHawk said: if you need crazy IO, most likely you will need more CPU and ram. If so, you are most likely not going to fund all the goodies under 7$. No 7$ no Leb.

    While this can be true in rare cases, I have yet to see it. What I have seen is 128's needing crazy IO and that is it, 1 CPU core and 128mb is plenty, but the IO they need is insane with the site they may be running, and placing this onto a SSD cached node solves their problem. This is an extreme example, but one I have seen.

    Mostly what I do see is wordpress plugin addiction, and mysql becomes an unruly nightmare to a node. I'm sure we will beat this topic better than beating a dead horse, but this is among our community, and we don't really need to re-educate ourselves, for the most part LET members are very open minded to new ideas and trying new ways of accomplishing a task.

    @MannDude said: your average random customer thinks their wordpress blog is going to be the next big thing on the internet and they want what they think their site deserves, which is the 'best' service to sustain it. Most

    You really said it here! I have chosen to provide SSD cached nodes, but not all nodes will have this feature, I am of the mind I will reserve it for those who need it, and since it adds less than $100 to the cost of the node, I have no reason to charge a premium for it. I will not win many hearts with that policy, and I won't even get a look from the masses who feel they have the next top 10 site as they will want to overbuy resources/performance based on nothing other than their perceived needs, nothing real. Many others will market their service, at a premium, as providing SSD only storage, and do far better while not actually providing what the client will optimally need. But since the client thinks they need it, the sale will go to the opportunistic.

  • @john said: @fly said: Also, IIRC continuous db read/write (the kind that would really justify higher r/w numbers) would decrease the life of the ssd pretty quickly anyways.

    SSDs have come a long way since they were first released. Life expectancy is no longer a major concern when managed correctly. Even when SSDs do fail, they fail more gracefully than HDDs, entering a read-only mode but no data loss. Here is a quote from funkywizard (IOFLOOD) on WHT

    funkywizard on WHT said: SMART tools will provide you with a metric showing the wear level as a percentage-remaining. The lowest we've seen this metric on any server is 97, and that was for a server that had been doing minecraft hosting for nearly a year which just beats the drives to death with random writes. So if a nearly worst-case scenario load level can only take out 3% of the write lifespan in a year, and we've had only one maybe-failure for a couple dozen drives in 2 years, yeah, I'll consider that at least as reliable as regular hard drives.

    I believe @Nick_A also does Minecraft hosting. Perhaps he can weigh in on this.

    2 SSDs in 70 nodes used for Minecraft hosting. Out of 140 SSDs, no failures... yet.

  • It would be nice if provider have both SSD and non-SSD offers, because we use lebs for different purposes.

  • TazTaz Member

    @Manndude kvm vds with 5Gb space where os and the basic goodies will take upto 4gig and you will hardly have enough space for a good site. My 2c.

  • Nick_ANick_A Member, Top Host, Host Rep

    @jcaleb said: It would be nice if provider have both SSD and non-SSD offers, because we use lebs for different purposes.

    We will soon :)

    @john said: I believe @Nick_A also does Minecraft hosting. Perhaps he can weigh in on this.

    Yes, what Gabe said is true in our experience as well. I haven't had any failures with Intel 320s or Samsung 830s and I've used a bunch so far. Also, the write life projections are over a decade on our year-old Minecraft nodes.

  • cosmicgatecosmicgate Member
    edited August 2012

    SSD is not significant for my application. If i get to choose between a package of 3-5gb SSD storage + 500Gb BW vs 10gb-20gb storage+ 1TB BW, i would choose the later.

  • telephonetelephone Member
    edited August 2012

    @jcaleb said: It would be nice if provider have both SSD and non-SSD offers, because we use lebs for different purposes.

    That's why there's different providers... When you go into a candy shop, you don't complain that Snickers doesn't have fruit. Instead you go and buy a product that has fruit.

    Thanked by 2jcaleb dmmcintyre3
  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    @miTgiB said: @MikHo said: Perhaps you shouldn't be running it on a vps with alot of other users?

    That is very close to saying "you get what you pay for", and I think most at LET know that is a false statement.

    Very close :) but not crossing the line. We all read about nodes almost bending backwards when a bunch of new users all run the dd command after a sale, bringing I/O down for everyone on that node.

    It always depends on the purpose what you will use the vps for.

  • @telephone said: That's why there's different providers... When you go into a candy shop, you don't complain that Snickers doesn't have fruit. Instead you go and buy a product that has fruit.

    Indeedy, and my inquiry here is mostly to determine if people are interested in fruit, or if they'd rather just have candy :D

  • mikhomikho Member, Host Rep

    Is fruit == ssd and candy == hdd ?

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