Looking at new server for PC: SSD ok for MySQL?

I don't have such problems on my single Intel X25-M G2 160 gig. Out of curiosity, which model of OCZ drives do you have that exhibit the above problem? What sort of RAID setup is it? Does it support TRIM w/the setup the way you have it?

Yeah, Intel was very expensive but at the time I put together my system, there were almost no choices that were reasonably priced that had better performance and that I could trust (e.g. Anandtech has had trouble w/Crucial SSDs and at least one of their firmware releases was problematic and bricking drives). Not that Intel's immune (they had trouble w/one of their firmware releases too), but I think Intel has WAY more resources to do proper validation and testing of their components and firmware (along w/their rep on the line) than smaller players.

 

I've little experience with low end databases, so won't say anything on that front.

But, if you are interested, you should look into sustainable hosting. I know about them because TOD is hosted there ...

Web hosting, email hosting, spam protection, virus protection, domain registration, DNS hosting, open-source hosting : Massachusetts 01072 : GAIA Host Collective

 

Video ! Video ! Link from BoingBoing this weekend.

Why SSDs are worth the money - Boing Boing

Just to put things in perspective. My 4-disk SSD Raid (sata controller), I did a full backup of one of my master SQL Server databases, that's 180 Gigs in size. Took less than a minute.

Restored on a different, similar server, regular multi-disk RAID (also SATA). Took 1.5 hours to restore, PLUS, the .BAK files were on a different disk.

I totally agree with Artur Bergman that SSD's for professionals is worth it.

 

I would have the same problem with Intel's SSD. My setup is a 3-monitor, gazillion open windows, Outlook, sometimes I run more than one VMWare. Only one SSD, not a raid. Our SSD-Raid is in our server. My box, Win7, detects SSD's automatically, did not need to set trim (full install direct to SSD from Win7 Ultimate ISO). I'm MSDN...!

This "stuttering" was overall worse with a regular disk. Also my SSD is over a year old.

Ah, not an OCZ...I remember now, out of stock, settled for Transcend Sata2 64G. Was like 300$ versus the similar-sized Intel at 600$. SSD's have come down in price/capacity since. I'll simply Clone my C: drive into another SSD, or rebuild my OS, whatever fits my fancy.
99% of my things run in VMWare & Terminal Server sessions, my box is just a box.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about your first statement.

Do you have a model for that Transcend SSD? I found this review SSD Battles: Corsair X128 vs. Solutions on JMicron Chip - X-bit labs and even their SLC drive was lackluster. It appears to use a much maligned JMicron controller. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the cause of your stutters.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/17 and some of the benchmarks further on show how lousy that JMicron JMF602, JMF602B and even two JMF602B chip drives are in writes. In some overall system performance tests, they're worse than mechanical hard drives.

On a mechanical hard drive, you might not notice stutters but horrible thrashing instead...

 

Yup, that's exactly the Transcend + problem that I have. Good detective work there...

 

Hey Danny,

Please post what you end up choosing and how the performance is.

My vBulletin 3 forum seems to be almost the same size. It has over 1 million posts, transfers about 4GB per day and the SQL database peaks around 400 concurrent users.

I've been with the same host for a few years now on a semi-dedicated cluster. I'm finally reaching the limits of the plan. They've suggested I move to their premium semi-dedicated cluster (even fewer clients, better hardware including SSD). I agreed to the move but it has taken a couple months longer to deploy than expected and it still isn't going yet. Not a big deal as I'm not in a hurry and performance is still decent for now. They've also suggested a high end dedicated system in the past, probably more or less like the one you are considering.

I'm hoping to not have to move to a new host, but I'd appreciate the input in case I do ever have to move. Finding good referrals is difficult because most forums this size or larger seem to be owned by vertical forum integrators with lots of co-hosted forums or large companies with much bigger budgets.

 

Lets not forget the network side of the equation:

You'll see improvements just moving the server(s) from:

4428 S. Creyts Rd. Lansing, MI 48917

To:

427 S. La Salle Chicago, IL 60605

Lansing is not major interconnect city. But, Chicago is for the midwest. You can also get rid of the Los Angeles-based CDN.

 

What are they planning to charge you for this "semi-dedicated" cluster. I assume that means a virtual server. Depending on the price it may be better for you to get a dedicated server.

 

I think the listed rate for their "Managed Luxury Enterprise" cluster III was $249 a month but can't remember as they don't have it listed anymore (guessing it may be "full"). I was told the webserver is "dedicated". I had the choice of a dedicated SQL server or a high powered "semi-shared" SSD cluster for SQL (presumably meaning a low and limited number of clients using it). With discounts I don't know what it will be exactly until the next quarterly billing cycle but I budgeted $1800 for a year which was a hair above the estimate. Don't know what the hardware specs are, but don't really care as long as it's working well. I was told it had SSD drives and a major increase in processor power and memory over my previous shared setup to boost SQL database performance. My database is over 1.5 GB, probably on the same order of size as PC, but I suspect PC has higher peak traffic and concurrent users. I xfer about 4GB a day typically. It had been higher a few months back before I installed a bad behavior plugin to prohibit access to known spammer/skimmer bots.

Anyway, since the upgrade and some optimizations, all my issues are resolved. Slowness at peak times is greatly reduced. Slowness when backup process runs is reduced significantly. It generally feels faster. I can't say it's business-class or anything since I have no reference to a high powered dedicated server to compare, but it's a lot better than before at least. My Hyperspin performance showed an average processing time of 170ms for the 4 weeks after the upgrade was completed, compared to 250ms for the 4 weeks prior. My Google performance graph also has improved considerably since the change a month ago. Not sure why the response improved gradually instead of suddenly. Maybe Google uses a running average of some type to avoid instantaneous variations.

Sorry I'm not a hosting or server expert. I wish I could speak to how much of the improvement was from the SSD drives for the SQL database and how much was to CPU/memory increases and software upgrades. They guessed the SSDs would help considerably for a site like mine, so that's about all I have to go on.