Question SSDs and RAID in a Server environment

[ScrewySqrl]

I remember quite a few years ago that it was not recommended to RAID SSDs due to it greatly shortening SSD lifespans.

How true is this with modern SSDs? And if you were to raid SSDs together, what would be the best RAID format for SSDs to maximize drive life?

I'm looking at setting up an SSD-equipped server using several SSDs RAIDed (probably 2.5" drives to go in 1U/2U servers) to make a single large drive, going for space and data recovery, not necessarily greater speed, so RAID 10, Raid 5. Raid 6 would be what I was looking at. with combined SSDs in the 6-20TB range for different servers.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Anyone?

 

[Deleted member 14196]

You can use windows to group a bunch of disk together as one disk and not use raid.

It’s called disc spanning

 

[USAFRet]

Drive lifespan concerns would be handled by using the Enterprise version of whatever drives you're looking at.
For instance, the Samsung PROs have a warranty TBW twice that of the EVOs.

Which RAID version would be dictated by your space and data requirements.

 

[popatim]

Can your server users deal with that much rebuild time should/when a drive fail?
A 16Tb ssd array would take 9hrs+ depending on what else it was doing during the rebuild.
That's the drawback of such large drives. More drives at 4Tb's drops the rebuild time to about 2.5 hrs which is the trade-off for having more failure points (the drives themselves).

 

[mdd1963]

RAID 5 is still considered acceptable for SSD's, and they are much less likely to have an additional SSD fail in the event of a required rebuild, a common concern w/spinning drives....