Smoked! Consumer SSD in 24/7 Server environment

When a customer asks for storage systems, SSDs are a frequent option to boost performance. However, you’ll definitely face the question why enterprise SSDs are so expensive. Especially in an SMB, where you have to discuss each Cent, the question arises if it would be possible to use cheap consumer SSDs instead. Most storage systems use SAS drives while consumer SSDs have SATA ports. Depending on the controller you might not even be able to include a SATA SSD in your storage system.

However, I had such a situation where a SSD was used as direct attached storage within an IBM x3300 M4 server system. SQL Server was native installed on the machine and an Ocz Agility 3 SSD was used for tempdb only. After 22167 hours of usage (923 days), the first signs of problems showed up. Tempdb files were corrupt and the OS reported I/O errors accessing the files.

Conclusion

Using SSD in a storage system or direct attached storage in a server will significantly improve the system performance. However, don’t use consumer SSD in your system. They will probably fail within 2 – 3 years and you don’t get support for 24/7 environment. Enterprise SSDs a more expensive but more durable. Depending on your support contract you get spare parts up to 5 years.