RAID Caching and SSD Drives
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@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
We have a Dell R420 with H710P controller. We have 5 960GB Edge SSD Drives.
What the best way to configure this?
xByte recommends turning the caching completely, does this make since?
From what I have read turning caching off is typically best practice. @scottalanmiller can clarify that for you though. I think it's just unreliable.
Providing their is a battery backup for the Raid controller is there an issue with leaving caching on? If so why? Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
From what I understand the cache should, from a logical standpoint (whether implementation dictates otherwise), be faster than the SSD access. I could be wrong though. Normally it goes registers > caching > main memory > SSD > mechanical spinny things, no?
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@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
We have a Dell R420 with H710P controller. We have 5 960GB Edge SSD Drives.
What the best way to configure this?
xByte recommends turning the caching completely, does this make since?
From what I have read turning caching off is typically best practice. @scottalanmiller can clarify that for you though. I think it's just unreliable.
Providing their is a battery backup for the Raid controller is there an issue with leaving caching on? If so why? Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
The write cache on the disk makes the RAID controller (software or hardware) think that the writes are in a non-volatile state, when in fact they may not be. That's what I mean by unreliable.
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@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
We have a Dell R420 with H710P controller. We have 5 960GB Edge SSD Drives.
What the best way to configure this?
xByte recommends turning the caching completely, does this make since?
From what I have read turning caching off is typically best practice. @scottalanmiller can clarify that for you though. I think it's just unreliable.
Providing their is a battery backup for the Raid controller is there an issue with leaving caching on? If so why? Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
With that said a Battery backup removes a lot of that worry.
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@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
We have a Dell R420 with H710P controller. We have 5 960GB Edge SSD Drives.
What the best way to configure this?
xByte recommends turning the caching completely, does this make since?
From what I have read turning caching off is typically best practice. @scottalanmiller can clarify that for you though. I think it's just unreliable.
Providing their is a battery backup for the Raid controller is there an issue with leaving caching on? If so why? Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
With that said a Battery backup removes a lot of that worry.
Would that be the server level battery backup or the Raid level? Which cache do you mean the Raid cards write cache or is there one built into the SSDs?
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@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
That is the question
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@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
We have a Dell R420 with H710P controller. We have 5 960GB Edge SSD Drives.
What the best way to configure this?
xByte recommends turning the caching completely, does this make since?
From what I have read turning caching off is typically best practice. @scottalanmiller can clarify that for you though. I think it's just unreliable.
Providing their is a battery backup for the Raid controller is there an issue with leaving caching on? If so why? Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
With that said a Battery backup removes a lot of that worry.
Would that be the server level battery backup or the Raid level? Which cache do you mean the Raid cards write cache or is there one built into the SSDs?
I suppose it's possible, but seems unlikely.
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Not saying it is right or wrong, but the PERC cards have caching turned on by default for SSDs.
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@BRRABill said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
Not saying it is right or wrong, but the PERC cards have caching turned on by default for SSDs.
Why would we think the drive type would matter? Spinning or Flash memory - so what? Now - if the RAID card's ability to retrieve data is as fast or faster from the SSD arrays than the cache, then sure, take it out, because it's nothing but another point of failure, but if it's providing performance enhancement, just like it does for HDDs, why would you change anything from how you've treated them for the past 2+ decades?
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@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@wirestyle22 said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
We have a Dell R420 with H710P controller. We have 5 960GB Edge SSD Drives.
What the best way to configure this?
xByte recommends turning the caching completely, does this make since?
From what I have read turning caching off is typically best practice. @scottalanmiller can clarify that for you though. I think it's just unreliable.
Providing their is a battery backup for the Raid controller is there an issue with leaving caching on? If so why? Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
The write cache on the disk makes the RAID controller (software or hardware) think that the writes are in a non-volatile state, when in fact they may not be. That's what I mean by unreliable.
That's not where the cache is, though
That cache has to be disabled. The RAID cache is a completely different thing and is not volatile. -
@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
@coliver said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
Is the SSD array faster then the built in cache?
That is the question
The SSD array is not faster than memory.
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@BRRABill said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
Not saying it is right or wrong, but the PERC cards have caching turned on by default for SSDs.
You mean the SSD's own cache?
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I think that we need xByte to weigh in as to why they are giving this advice because there is a very good chance that information has been relayed incorrectly. As we can see in the thread, one question (about RAID cache) has been almost instantly translated into drive cache.
Drive cache is always supposed to be disabled on RAID, even on old spinning rust Winchester drives. That's why SAS drives have itty bitty cache and cache sizes are only ever discussed when we are talking about single drive desktop class systems with consumer SATA drives. Drive cache is a consumer concept.
RAID cache in any business or enterprise class system is always either backed by battery or is non-volatile flash cache - NVRAM.
In theory, the cache should be quite a bit faster than the SSD array. But not the insane amount faster than it is with spinning rust drives, of course.
What is normally done, AFAIK, with moving to SSD arrays is to change the cache mix from 50/50 or even 80/20 to as drastically opposite as 0/100 (no read cache, all write cache.) This is for a couple of reasons: one to dramatically lower the write expansion and penalties on parity arrays and to lower the latency of write operations as impacted by the CPU.
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@scottalanmiller said
You mean the SSD's own cache?
No, the RAID cache. I thought that is what was being discussed.
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Hopefully xByte will be by soon
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@aaronstuder said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
Hopefully xByte will be by soon
I found e-mailing the person you are looking for and referencing a thread (by the link) s the best way to get them to respond quickly.
Since the notifications don't really work on ML, it's the only good way.
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To get the best performance enable write-through cache, and no read ahead in the controller BIOS. Dell calls Cut-Through IO specifically to enhance the performance of SSD arrays.
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@BradfromxByte Thanks brad! Can you PM me your contact details?
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@BradfromxByte said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
To get the best performance enable write-through cache, and no read ahead in the controller BIOS. Dell calls Cut-Through IO specifically to enhance the performance of SSD arrays.
So my comment that the PERC takes care of it was kind of correct.
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@BradfromxByte said in RAID Caching and SSD Drives:
To get the best performance enable write-through cache, and no read ahead in the controller BIOS. Dell calls Cut-Through IO specifically to enhance the performance of SSD arrays.
http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Write-through-write-around-write-back-Cache-explained
Normally write through does not disable the cache, just changes it for safety. Do you know what aspect of write through would improve performance?
