Now, here’s someone who really understands the benefits and value of using Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs) in enterprise IT data centers:  Mark Peters.

Mark covers data center storage and systems for Enterprise Strategy Group.  He was recently interviewed for a SearchStorage.com “FAQ Guide” podcast about the growth in enterprise solid state technology.  (Read the full transcript here)

In the interview, Mark addresses the questions he hears most often from storage administrators about solid state technology, and I have to say that his views are spot-on — particularly regarding the benefits and value of solid state, and the market/business drivers that are making the technology increasingly attractive.

A few of the key points Mark makes are:

1)  I/O performance benefits

“Generically, whatever is most important to a business or enterprise or organization in terms of getting throughput and I/O handled, wherever you need speed, wherever you need a great deal of performance in terms of throughput, then solid state will be great.”

2)  Energy efficiency

“Given that we’re in such challenging economic times, that makes solid state more interesting.  Obviously with my focus on the data center I look at the green aspect of computing as well, and it’s hard to overlook solid state from that perspective.”

3)  Cost-efficiency

“Even in terms of today’s pricing, cost per I/O or the I/O per watt for solid state are already very compelling.”

It’s nice to see Mark (and other industry experts) start to recognize the important and growing role EFDs will play in the future.

Amyl Ahola

PS.  Mark also has a blog with more great info on a variety data center storage issues:  Mark My Words.  I suggest checking it out if you haven’t already.

In a previous blog, I suggested that performance, reliability, IOPS per watt, and IOPS per $ are key storage metrics for enterprises. However, satisfying demanding enterprise needs goes far beyond the attainment of just these metrics. I/O-intensive enterprise IT applications require IOPS and bandwidth levels to be predictable and sustainable across a variety of workload requirements.

Predictable performance has traditionally been a challenge for SSDs in enterprise applications because workloads are random and indeterminate. This means that predictability requires consistent performance, independent of whether reading or writing data, as enterprise applications typically vary the read-to-write ratio between 60/40 and 90/10.  Ensuring that predictable performance is maintained while the workload changes is another example of how an Enterprise Flash Drive (EFD) offers differentiation from traditional SSDs. 

A performance comparison (IOmeter-based) between a well-publicized ‘enterprise’ SSD and the new Pliant EFD illustrates this difference.  From the chart, you can see how the ‘enterprise’ SSD(I) performance drops by over 80% as the read/write ratio changes. The Pliant EFD maintains its performance across the range from 100% reads to a 50/50 read/write ratio. This is because the Pliant EFD can read and write simultaneously to the drive and therefore offer substantially better and predictable performance for these demanding applications. Traditional SSDs and HDDs can only perform one read or write at a time. 

The bottom line: EFDs enable enterprises to achieve higher I/O performance, maintain performance predictability with changing workloads, offer higher levels of service quality, and dynamically address changing business requirements without adding additional hardware.   

I’m curious to hear what you think, so please feel free to comment.

Amyl