The analysis of SSD vs. mechanical hard disk is not as simple as it looks

In the early stages of development of all-flash arrays, companies only used SSD drives when performance requirements exceeded price considerations. However, with the declining prices of flash memory and technological improvements, many companies are replacing aging HDD hard disks with SSDs.

The analysis of SSDs vs. HDDs is not as simple as it looks. SSD hard disk prices are declining, and production capacity is also increasing. But for many non-critical workloads, HDD drives are still a good storage option.

In the early stages of development of all-flash arrays, companies only used SSD drives when performance requirements exceeded price considerations. However, with the declining prices of flash memory and technological improvements, many companies are replacing aging HDD hard disks with SSDs.

However, the application of HDD hard drives in the enterprise is far from over. They still constitute most of the storage space in an enterprise data center. The all-flash situation is not as fast as many SSD hard disk vendors suggest. Therefore, when comparing the application and development of SSD hard disks and HDD hard disks, IT decision makers face a difficult choice.

All Flash Storage Revolution

It is not surprising that IT teams use SSD drives. All-flash arrays offer lower latency and higher IOPS than HDD drives. They take up less space and use less energy. However, until recently, SSD drives have been known for their low capacity and high cost, especially on a per-gigabyte basis. With SSD hard disk capacity higher than ever and the price dropping, all-flash storage arrays are now a viable storage alternative for many organizations.

The biggest benefit of flash memory is primary storage, especially for workloads with high performance requirements, such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and relational database management systems.

As people's innovation and interest turn to flash memory technology, HDD hard disks need more improvements. SSD drives have faster maximum throughput than HDD drives and are more reliable or more durable.

When considering SSDs and HDDs, HDDs are not at the end of their functional life, but technological progress is slowing down, while SSDs are not. New technologies can improve performance, increase capacity, and lower prices. SSD hard drives may speed HDD hard drives out.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that increasing capacity is their next storage purchase goal.

Increase SSD hard disk capacity

Compared with SSD drives, which for the first time became a viable option for enterprise storage, all-flash SSD drives can handle larger capacities. Samsung launched a 30TB SSD in February of this year. A month later, Nimbus Data introduced a 100TB SSD. Compared with HDD hard drives, vendors have just reached the threshold of 14TB, and the industry predicts that 20TB SSDs will be introduced by 2020.

The growth capacity of SSD hard disks is the result of new technologies. First, the single-stage cell gives way to multi-level cells, allowing 2-bit data to be stored in each NAND cell. Then, a three-level unit appears, allowing 3 bits per unit. Nowadays, people have 3D NAND flash memory that can vertically stack multiple layers of NAND cells and provide more capacity than ever before.

SSD hard disk vendors also incorporate advanced features such as compression and online deduplication into their products. This leads to a three- to five-fold increase in available storage while still providing high IOPS and low latency.

In other words, be cautious when estimating the amount of available storage. It largely depends on the type of data the organization is using. For example, if the file is already compressed, as with many video files, the use of compression and deduplication will not be of much use. This is also true for encrypted files, such as large database backups. Deduplication cannot do much work because encryption often removes duplicate data, resulting in insufficient available storage space.

Another area where capacity planning is tricky is over-provisioning, which is a practice used with SSD drives to dynamically reallocate bad sectors. Be sure to consider over-provisioning when calculating available storage.

Therefore, SSD drives are still ahead of HDD drives in terms of capacity, but may not reach people's expectations, which may affect the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Realize true TCO

When evaluating SSD drives and HDD drives, don't stay on the simple cost-per-gigabyte comparison. Instead, a full assessment of capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operating expenditures (OPEX) is required. For example, SSD drives are generally more reliable and durable than HDD drives because they have no moving parts and are not vulnerable to impact. Although the life span of these two types of equipment is limited, the failure rate of SSD hard disks tends to be lower and the fault point is more predictable.

In addition, SSD drives are often easier to use and manage, further reducing costs. Compared to HDD hard disks, they use less power, are easier to cool, and take up less space, further saving money.

Another important consideration for SSD drives and HDD drives is performance. If all-flash storage can bring higher productivity, such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), potential cost savings should be considered, although this is an indicator that is difficult to quantify.

Using HDD hard drives may require a lower initial investment, but long-term considerations may exceed this advantage. Even so, the initial cost should not be ignored. Although the SSD hard disk seems to be approaching the HDD hard disk drive's capacity-cost ratio, it has not yet appeared, especially when it comes to commodity hard disk drives.

SSDs built for enterprise data centers cost 25 to 40 cents per gigabyte. High-end HDD drives for businesses that can provide 15,000 RPM cost 25 to 30 cents per gigabyte. Although estimates may vary, prices will fluctuate, but prices for SSD drives and high-end HDD drives are approaching. In other words, many people in the industry believe that the advantages of HDD hard drives still exist.

A commercial HDD hard drive is a different story. They may only provide 7,500 RPM, but they have a price advantage over SSDs, which cost only a few cents per gigabyte. For many organizations, the advantages offered by SSD drives are far from sufficient to offset the price advantage of commodity HDD drives, especially in storing certain types of data.

Avoid all-flash adoption

For performance-critical primary workloads, SSD hard drives or some hybrid variant may be the best choice. At this point, only in exceptional circumstances will the IT team consider HDD drives for critical workloads, such as short-term business strategies or using HDD hard drives to store large amounts of data. However, if performance is not a priority, as in the case of backing up or archiving data, HDD hard drives may be a better choice.

Remember that when evaluating SSDs and HDDs for secondary storage, you can provide benefits that may not be immediately obvious. For example, they can speed up backup and recovery operations, support big data analytics and content streaming, and provide faster response times for unpredictable requests. However, if these types of operations are not priority and the workload is not latency-sensitive, then there is no reason to invest in an all-flash array, at least until the price drops further.

Before making any decision, the organization needs to determine how to use and access the data and how much data will be stored. Also, consider the nature of the application that will access the data. The goal of the organization is to achieve a true total cost of ownership (TCO) that takes into account all factors. SSD hard drives may attract people's attention, but using HDD drives is still an economically viable option that can handle many non-critical workloads.

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