[mythtvnz] SSD versus rotational HD pricing

[Steve Hodge]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Daniel Giddens <daniel at acsdata.co.nz>wrote:

> WHEN! the 1TB drives drop below $300 then I will upgrade my back end
> storage as well.
>

I'll certainly be upgrading my desktop machines with SSDs. But that doesn't
mean they make sense anywhere else. What benefit do you expect to get by
putting one into your backend? A single modern SATA drive can easily handle
4 HD streams simultaneously. Do you really find that limiting? Do really
need to be able to boot your backend 20s faster?

As for me, I currently have 3TB of storage on a file server (raid5 so really
4.5TB of drives). Access to that storage is limited by gigabit networking,
i.e. theoretically 125MB/s, practically more like 60MB/s. So 300MB/s+ drive
performance doesn't buy me much if anything there. The machine has an uptime
measured in months so faster boot time doesn't justify an upgrade. Even when
1TB SSDs are less than $300, HDs will still be a better solution for me in
that area.


> But right now they have and will continue to be my main boot drives and
> application drives due to performance and nothing to do with price.
>

> Steve have you used and SSD ?? Actually anyone commenting on here have you
> had the pleasure?? ..... We run Myth ... we aren't normal people,
> performance and doing crazy off the wall things with technology is why we
> are here ... if it was price then we would by MySky or something similar
> boring and broken heh :)
>
> All I was trying to say was using SSD's for the first time was mind blowing
> ... it reminded me of the first voodoo graphics card, doom, 720p/1080p, all
> things that changed my 30 plus years in computing. whether it was waiting
> for a spectrum tape to load or windows to boot 32 seconds now reduced to 10
> ... we have been stuck at 60MB/s for years and now finally we can have
> 300+MB/s with multiple threads .... no more defragging!!!! and way more....
> and sub $300 for usable space. ..... if you haven't tried them all I am
> saying is you should before you fall into the $$/MB argument for not as it
> nothing to do with $$ its all about mind blowing new technology at a sub
> $300 price.
>

I'm not arguing that the performance isn't worth the price in the right
situation. I'm just saying that your assertion that in 2 years all drives
will be SSDs is unrealistic. Price may not be a consideration for you but it
will be for most people. I don't have the sort of money required to replace
my 3TB file server with SSDs at even 10x HD prices let alone the 60x HD
prices that SSDs currently command. Especially when the real performance
improvement is going to be less than a 2x increase due to other factors.

Cheers,
Steve
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