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 cell 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 click 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 centers 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 centers. The per­for­mance dif­fer­ence between SSDs and tra­di­tion­al HDDs becomes es­pe­cial­ly clear with regard to web­host­ing-related topics. This is why an in­creas­ing number of providers are choosing to either outfit their data centers 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 syn­chro­nize 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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