As early as the year 1956, the computer giant IBM released the world’s first mech­an­ic­al hard disk drive (HDD) with rotating magnetic discs. Since then, the basic prin­ciples of magnetic storage disks have changed very little. What has changed are the demands now placed upon the mech­an­ic­al com­pon­ents of this tech­no­logy. Instead of its original capacity of a modest 5 megabytes, today’s HDDs require storage ca­pa­cit­ies of multiple terabytes in order to keep up with ever in­creas­ing data loads. Over the years, the access time of these mech­an­ic­al storage plates has failed to keep up with these demands. While the per­form­ance aspects of most computing matters, like pro­cessing power or system bus speed, have increased many times over in recent decades, standard magnetic storage disks are slowly but surely reaching a per­form­ance bot­tle­neck of sorts. This situation is making it in­creas­ingly difficult to process more and more data at faster rates, and experts predict that con­ven­tion­al hard drives will soon abdicate their dominant position to al­tern­at­ive storage systems. What’s fueling this change is that the highly promising successor to this model, the flash-based solid-state drive (SSD), is already well in the works. For servers, using SSD storage is no longer con­sidered to be an approach relegated to the fringes of the IT world. This is due in part to the recent arrival of more af­ford­able options on the market, but also because of an increased number of read and write accesses. What’s more, the dur­ab­il­ity of SSD storage devices has also been adjusted to match the standards of those found on tra­di­tion­al hard drives.

How does SSD storage work?

SSDs differ from their hard disk coun­ter­parts in that they’re not composed of multiple, moveable in­di­vidu­al elements. Instead of rotating disks, SSD storage uses semi­con­duct­or mi­cro­chips that are placed on circuit boards. Using con­trol­lers and firmware, data is saved through a con­tinu­ous elec­tron­ic process in the flash storage. This kind of storage process is referred to as being ‘non-volatile’ and is also used in con­ven­tion­al USB sticks, MP3 players, and mobile phone memory cards. The term also refers to the fact that devices with SSD storage don’t need to be con­stantly attached to a power supply in order to sustain their storage functions. Things look a bit different when it comes to ‘volatile’ working memory (RAM): in­form­a­tion stored in RAM cannot be retrieved as soon as the computer is separated from its power source. Known to have demanded as­tro­nom­ic­al sums in the past, SSD storage for large amounts of data was once only used in the rarest of cases. But recent trends show that the prices of SSDs and HDDs are headed for parity. As a result, web hosting services offering servers with SSD storage are becoming less of a rarity than they once were.

Ad­vant­ages of SSD storage

Simply put, a solid-state drive is an overgrown USB stick. The storage process takes places elec­tron­ic­ally. When compared with magnetic disk drives, using semi­con­duct­or chips has the advantage that they are free of highly sensitive equipment, making them less prone to break­downs. This means that SSD storage devices are much less sensitive to external physical in­flu­ences. Es­sen­tially, the ad­vant­ages of SSDs can be broken down into five different areas:

  • High shock res­ist­ance: when magnetic disk drives are operating, falls or other physical dis­turb­ances can cause enormous damage during an ongoing writing process, with data losses or total break­downs sometimes resulting from such mishaps. SSDs, on the other hand, are based on a type of chip tech­no­logy that allows data to be exchanged through elec­tron­ic impulses. This type of storage tech­no­logy is both mech­an­ic­ally robust and resistant to shaking and sudden movements. According to man­u­fac­tur­ers, SSDs are shock resistant up to 1,500 g/0.5 ms. By com­par­is­on, the threshold of HDDs is only around 350 g/2 ms. Due to its shock res­ist­ance, SSD storage is the preferred storage device for mobile devices such as laptops.
  • Noiseless operation: even when modern HDDs operate very quietly, operating noises are still largely audible with mech­an­ic­al hard drives; these often stem from the hard drive’s electric motor. Typical noises include a buzzing sound, when the disk drive is first warming up, as well as a quiet clicking noise. The latter sound is brought about during access, or when the disk head moves back into its idle position. SSD storage, however, operates in a com­pletely silent manner due the lack of mech­an­ic­al com­pon­ents involved.
  • Limited weight: its compact di­men­sions also make SSD storage ideal for mobile use. SSDs are sig­ni­fic­antly smaller than their mech­an­ic­al coun­ter­parts and only weigh about half as much as HDD models of com­par­able storage capacity.
  • Lower energy usage: SSDs are also more efficient when it comes to energy use. Its non-mech­an­ic­al design uses less power than a HDD and wastes re­l­at­ively little heat. This trans­lates into a con­sid­er­ably longer battery life when built into laptops. Servers also benefit from this tech­no­logy. Not having to use any moveable parts means SSD servers use less power than their tra­di­tion­al coun­ter­parts. Ad­di­tion­ally, due to the fact that these servers generate sub­stan­tially less heat and lack moving com­pon­ents, a much less extensive cooling/vent­il­a­tion system is needed. This is why data centres with SSD servers are generally much more cost-effective and energy efficient.
  • Shorter access times: SSD’s biggest advantage is its speed. As is the case with other flash storage devices, SSDs have much shorter access times when reading data. For the user, this means that operating systems boot quicker and that loading times for ap­plic­a­tions are also greatly reduced. This makes SSD storage devices a great option for servers as well as private home users.

Using SSD servers

SSDs are great solutions for both mobile devices as well as home computers. They’re also becoming popular for use as web server com­pon­ents. And there’s both per­form­ance as well as energy ef­fi­ciency reasons as to why these modern flash storage devices are beginning to replace tra­di­tion­al HDDs for use in data centres. The per­form­ance dif­fer­ence between SSDs and tra­di­tion­al HDDs becomes es­pe­cially clear with regard to web hosting-related topics. This is why an in­creas­ing number of providers are choosing to either outfit their data centres with SSD servers or upgrade their server’s mech­an­ic­al devices with SSD com­pon­ents. In this process, data that normally isn’t accessed very often remains stored on con­ven­tion­al hard disks. More current data requiring a highly efficient storage man­age­ment system is saved on the server’s SSD. It’s re­com­men­ded to switch to a server with SSD when ap­plic­a­tions like databases, CRM, or mer­chand­ising systems are to be sped up.

Ac­cel­er­at­ing databases

Servers with SSD storage are able to reduce access time more than tenfold. This advantage is es­pe­cially important for in-and-output-intensive ap­plic­a­tions (i.e. when in­form­a­tion is sim­ul­tan­eously accessed and re­gistered). This is why databases like MySQL or MariaDB use SSDs. Quicker access to databases is par­tic­u­larly important for websites that are run by complex content man­age­ment systems, like WordPress or Drupal. The reason for this is because all content elements, themes, and plugins are stored and accessed in databases. While tra­di­tion­al storage devices are in­creas­ingly running into problems with these tasks, servers with SSD once again are able to display their strengths by ac­cel­er­at­ing website structure. This latter point is not only valued by site visitors, though; Google also honors such per­form­ance features. Under certain con­di­tions, those operating e-commerce platforms are rewarded for their upgrades with a better ranking and a better con­ver­sion rate. Microsoft Exchange Server is a good example of the technical ad­vant­ages that SSDs offer for servers: the col­lab­or­at­ive software is often used by working groups or busi­nesses to send messages, ap­point­ments, or contact in­form­a­tion. This format also involves storing all in­form­a­tion in one or more databases. The more complex the com­mu­nic­a­tion structure is, the more important it becomes to ensure a stable transfer of data, to help clients seam­lessly syn­chron­ise in­form­a­tion.

SSD cloud servers

SSDs are also ex­per­i­en­cing gains in pop­ular­ity with cloud computing. New web hosting concepts connect multiple physical SSDs to virtual storage platforms, also known as storage area networks (SAN). Virtual servers hosted this way benefit from the fact that this model features almost complete hardware re­dund­ancy. Data filed on virtual server platforms is never located on one single physical hardware component; instead, it’s dis­trib­uted through­out multiple hard drives. As a result, the data’s integrity and avail­ab­il­ity is always protected should hardware com­pon­ents ex­per­i­ence outages or defects.

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