Recommendations for SSDs in production?

From: Benjamin Smith <lists(at)benjamindsmith(dot)com>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Recommendations for SSDs in production?
Date: 2011-11-02 17:01:49
Message-ID: 201111021001.49488.lists@benjamindsmith.com
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Well,

After reading several glowing reviews of the new OCZ Vertex3 SSD last spring,
we did some performance testing in dev on RHEL6. (CentOS)

The results were nothing short of staggering. Complex query results returned
in 1/10th the time as a pessimistic measurement. System loads dropped from 2+
to 0.1 or less.

Wow.

So after months of using this SSD without any issues at all, we tentatively
rolled this out to production, and had blissful, sweet beauty until about 2
weeks ago, now we are running into sudden death scenarios. We have excellent
backup system, so the damage is reduced to roadbumps, but are looking for a
longer term solution that doesn't compromise performance too much.

The config is super-basic, basically no tuning at all was done:

# fdisk /dev/NNN;
mke2fs -j $partn;
mount $partn /var/lib/pgsql;
rsync -vaz /var/lib/pgsql.old /var/lib/pgsql;
service postgresql start;

I don't mind spending some money. Can anybody comment on a recommended drive
in real world use?

After some review I found:

1) Micron P300 SSD: claims excellent numbers, can't find them for sale
anywhere.

2) Intel X25E - good reputation, significantly slower than the Vertex3. We're
buying some to reduce downtime.

3) OCZ "Enterprise" - reviews are mixed.

4) Kingston "Enterprise" drives appear to be identical to consumer drives with
a different box.

5) STEC drives are astronomically expensive. (EG: "You're kidding, right?")

6) Corsair consumer drives getting excellent reviews, Aberdeen Inc recommended
in use with RAID 1.

7) Seagate Pulsar drives, XT.2 drives are expensive SLC but can't find a
vendor, Pulsar .2 drives are more available but having trouble finding reviews
other than rehashed press releases.

Thanks!

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