Mailing List Archive: DRBD: Users

using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge

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bart.coninckx at telenet

Mar 8, 2012, 2:28 AM

Post #1 of 6 (758 views)
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using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone is successfully SSD drives as their backend
storage devices. If so, I'm wondering if these drives do no degrade
quite fast seen there is no TRIM support in DRBD.

I'm also wondering if can motivate people to help sponsor this feature.
If the group is large enough, I suppose we can get this done for not too
much money.

thx!

B.
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M.vandeLande at VDL-Fittings

Mar 8, 2012, 2:40 AM

Post #2 of 6 (732 views)
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Re: using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge [In reply to]

Hallo Bart,

I'm using SSD drives. To work around the TRIM challenge I use I RAID controller and only 80% of the available SSD capacity. So I have 20% spare. Which will hopefully give me 3 years of operation. (MLC FLASH)

Drbd get's a fixed disk through the RAID controller.

Best Regards,

Maurits van de Lande

| Van de Lande BV. | Lissenveld 1 | 4941VK | Raamsdonksveer | the Netherlands |T +31 (0) 162 516000 | F +31 (0) 162 521417 | www.vdl-fittings.com |

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: drbd-user-bounces [at] lists [mailto:drbd-user-bounces [at] lists] Namens Bart Coninckx
Verzonden: donderdag 8 maart 2012 11:29
Aan: drbd-user [at] lists
Onderwerp: [DRBD-user] using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone is successfully SSD drives as their backend storage devices. If so, I'm wondering if these drives do no degrade quite fast seen there is no TRIM support in DRBD.

I'm also wondering if can motivate people to help sponsor this feature.
If the group is large enough, I suppose we can get this done for not too much money.

thx!

B.
_______________________________________________
drbd-user mailing list
drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

_______________________________________________
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drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

christoph at iway

Mar 8, 2012, 3:10 AM

Post #3 of 6 (732 views)
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Re: using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge [In reply to]

We are using consumer grade SSD drives in a few of our servers for 4+ years
now. (started with MTRON devices, switched to Intel later on and lately also
some Samsung drives)
Though we just started using SSD drives as DRBD backend storage (hardware
RAID6 - thus no TRIM anyways) we use similar configurations in storage
arrays for high IO performance virtual machines. (ESX mostly)
So far we had zero problems with it and no measurable performance
degradation and only one drive from the 100+ we have, failed so far. Though
this happened already after one of two weeks in operation and was an
electronic problem and not due to NAND wear out.

As long as the drives have some internal GarbageCollection (as most do
nowadays) and you make sure that they do never fill up completeley (normally
we format such arrays to a max of 90% of available space) the absence of
TRIM can be neglected in my opinion.

As far as TRIM support in DRBD goes - I don't know.
LVM may support it already in RAID0/1 setups, but MDRaid nor any hardware
RAID does it, (and hardware raid support may never ever come/work beside
raid0/1 setups) so this limits the use of TRIM support in DRBD quite much.

Christoph

> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering if anyone is successfully SSD drives as their backend
> storage devices. If so, I'm wondering if these drives do no degrade quite
> fast seen there is no TRIM support in DRBD.
>
> I'm also wondering if can motivate people to help sponsor this feature. If
> the group is large enough, I suppose we can get this done for not too much
> money.

_______________________________________________
drbd-user mailing list
drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

bart.coninckx at telenet

Mar 8, 2012, 11:31 PM

Post #4 of 6 (743 views)
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Re: using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge [In reply to]

Hi Maurits,

that's an excellent idea. But how are you going to know when a SSD
effectively wears out?

thx,

B.

On 03/08/12 11:40, Maurits van de Lande wrote:
> Hallo Bart,
>
> I'm using SSD drives. To work around the TRIM challenge I use I RAID controller and only 80% of the available SSD capacity. So I have 20% spare. Which will hopefully give me 3 years of operation. (MLC FLASH)
>
> Drbd get's a fixed disk through the RAID controller.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Maurits van de Lande
>
> | Van de Lande BV. | Lissenveld 1 | 4941VK | Raamsdonksveer | the Netherlands |T +31 (0) 162 516000 | F +31 (0) 162 521417 | www.vdl-fittings.com |
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: drbd-user-bounces [at] lists [mailto:drbd-user-bounces [at] lists] Namens Bart Coninckx
> Verzonden: donderdag 8 maart 2012 11:29
> Aan: drbd-user [at] lists
> Onderwerp: [DRBD-user] using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge
>
> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering if anyone is successfully SSD drives as their backend storage devices. If so, I'm wondering if these drives do no degrade quite fast seen there is no TRIM support in DRBD.
>
> I'm also wondering if can motivate people to help sponsor this feature.
> If the group is large enough, I suppose we can get this done for not too much money.
>
>
> thx!
>
> B.
> _______________________________________________
> drbd-user mailing list
> drbd-user [at] lists
> http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user
>
>

_______________________________________________
drbd-user mailing list
drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

bart.coninckx at telenet

Mar 8, 2012, 11:35 PM

Post #5 of 6 (725 views)
Permalink

Re: using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge [In reply to]

Christoph,

thx, that's reaussuring. I was not planning on using RAID though, the
SSD would just be there for Dom0 and all the OS partitions of the DomUs.
I may not got to the 4 years this way, but Ii hope to be able to get to
at least have of that or something,

cheers,

B.

On 03/08/12 12:10, Christoph Roethlisberger wrote:
> We are using consumer grade SSD drives in a few of our servers for 4+
> years now. (started with MTRON devices, switched to Intel later on and
> lately also some Samsung drives)
> Though we just started using SSD drives as DRBD backend storage
> (hardware RAID6 - thus no TRIM anyways) we use similar configurations
> in storage arrays for high IO performance virtual machines. (ESX mostly)
> So far we had zero problems with it and no measurable performance
> degradation and only one drive from the 100+ we have, failed so far.
> Though this happened already after one of two weeks in operation and
> was an electronic problem and not due to NAND wear out.
>
> As long as the drives have some internal GarbageCollection (as most do
> nowadays) and you make sure that they do never fill up completeley
> (normally we format such arrays to a max of 90% of available space)
> the absence of TRIM can be neglected in my opinion.
>
> As far as TRIM support in DRBD goes - I don't know.
> LVM may support it already in RAID0/1 setups, but MDRaid nor any
> hardware RAID does it, (and hardware raid support may never ever
> come/work beside raid0/1 setups) so this limits the use of TRIM
> support in DRBD quite much.
>
>
> Christoph
>
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I was wondering if anyone is successfully SSD drives as their backend
>> storage devices. If so, I'm wondering if these drives do no degrade
>> quite fast seen there is no TRIM support in DRBD.
>>
>> I'm also wondering if can motivate people to help sponsor this
>> feature. If the group is large enough, I suppose we can get this done
>> for not too much money.
>
> _______________________________________________
> drbd-user mailing list
> drbd-user [at] lists
> http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

_______________________________________________
drbd-user mailing list
drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

michael.kushnir at nih

Mar 9, 2012, 11:35 AM

Post #6 of 6 (755 views)
Permalink

Re: using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge [In reply to]

We are replicating a 3.8TB RAID0 with protocol C. We are using LSI 9260-8i RAID cards with SSD protection features and Crucial M4 512GB drives. The array supports OCFS2 v1.4 file system for use by three web servers. Our writes are large but infrequent-- once a month. The array is a year old and we've seen no degradation in performance or stability. See it at work at http://openi.nlm.nih.gov. :)

Michael Kushnir
Lead Unix and VMware Engineer
Communications Engineering Branch
Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications
National Library of Medicine

-----Original Message-----
From: Christoph Roethlisberger [mailto:christoph [at] iway]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 6:10 AM
To: drbd-user [at] lists
Subject: Re: [DRBD-user] using SSD drives, the TRIM challenge

We are using consumer grade SSD drives in a few of our servers for 4+ years now. (started with MTRON devices, switched to Intel later on and lately also some Samsung drives) Though we just started using SSD drives as DRBD backend storage (hardware
RAID6 - thus no TRIM anyways) we use similar configurations in storage arrays for high IO performance virtual machines. (ESX mostly) So far we had zero problems with it and no measurable performance degradation and only one drive from the 100+ we have, failed so far. Though this happened already after one of two weeks in operation and was an electronic problem and not due to NAND wear out.

As long as the drives have some internal GarbageCollection (as most do
nowadays) and you make sure that they do never fill up completeley (normally we format such arrays to a max of 90% of available space) the absence of TRIM can be neglected in my opinion.

As far as TRIM support in DRBD goes - I don't know.
LVM may support it already in RAID0/1 setups, but MDRaid nor any hardware RAID does it, (and hardware raid support may never ever come/work beside
raid0/1 setups) so this limits the use of TRIM support in DRBD quite much.

Christoph

> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering if anyone is successfully SSD drives as their backend
> storage devices. If so, I'm wondering if these drives do no degrade
> quite fast seen there is no TRIM support in DRBD.
>
> I'm also wondering if can motivate people to help sponsor this
> feature. If the group is large enough, I suppose we can get this done
> for not too much money.

_______________________________________________
drbd-user mailing list
drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user
_______________________________________________
drbd-user mailing list
drbd-user [at] lists
http://lists.linbit.com/mailman/listinfo/drbd-user

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