Crucial M4 64GB vs Sandisk Ultra Plus 64GB

[elsmandino]

Hi,

I am putting together a new server and have two SSDs that I can use for the OS and (which includes MSSQL, in cast this is relevant).

Having looked at this:

http://www.ssdwiki.com/2-5-inch/sandisk/ultra-plus/

http://www.ssdwiki.com/2-5-inch/crucial-2-5-inch/m4/

It seems that the Sandisk is the better drive in almost every way - on paper anyway.

Was just wondering whether you guys agreed to just go ahead with the Sandisk.

The remaining drive is going to be used as a secondary SSD in my desktop and will be used for CUBASE.

Thanks

[shaithis]

The Sandisk is pretty poor for SQL, although I can't find much info on the 8k reads/writes for the m4 to compare...

[abaxas]

All depends on the DB size.

If the server is only going to have a 64gb ssd in it, the DB is going to be so small it won't really matter providing the indexes fit into memory.

Also, look at cocurrent connections too.

IE this is an unanswerable question without knowing what the server's actual role is.

[elsmandino]

Sorry - I should have said.

It is really just a headless media server, running Windows 10.

I will be running Argus TV on it (thus why I shall need to install MSSQL 2012 or 2014) for recording and watching Live TC and also Emby for streaming my media so nothing majorly taxing.

I am also going to be installing 12GB RAM (6 GB, of which is going to be used as a RAM Disk for time shifting Live TV).

[elsmandino]

Is it perhaps the case that in practical terms, it is going to make virtually no difference to me?

[DanceswithUnix]

It does sounds like you are rather over complicating things.

[elsmandino]

Unfortunately, I have a tendency to do that when it comes to techie stuff.

Do you reckon it makes no difference? I.e. just flip a coin and stick either in?

[DanceswithUnix]

I am surprised you are bothering with an SSD at all, though perhaps I misunderstand your overall storage layout.

I assume you have rotating media to store all the content on? OK, I'm used to doing this sort of stuff on Linux, but basically:

1/ If a program is half way through when you tune in so you hit record, migrating the pause buffer from ramdisk to hard disk seems like giving the system more work to do.
2/ Hard drives don't mind being written to. Really, they are fine with that. Why put the pause buffer on ramdisk? I can only see it causing the media storage drive(s) to spin up and down all the time which causes them wear compared with just writing to them which is fine.
3/ If you have 12GB of ram, your entire database will be cached in RAM, so you won't get any performance improvement from using an SSD.

Have you tried doing this with just a disk slapped in a machine? I am trying to work out what you are actually trying to solve here

[elsmandino]

Hi,

Thanks for sticking with me on this.

1. Argus TV doesn't allow you to record what is in the buffer (much to the annoyance of some). All it allows you to do start a recording from that very instance in time.
2. RAMDisk use for time-shifting seems to be pretty much quite a standard thing that I have picked up from other users on the Argus TV Forum (and Mediaportal, which is the PVR backend I used before). I think the main benefit for me is that I tend to leave my bedroom TV on all night, running live tv, and as it is unlikely that any recordings will take place during about 2 and 7, all the hard drives are able to spin down for a good few hourse.
3. Very good point - as my server is on all the time and just wakes from sleep mode, the SSD is going to be pretty much of no benefit really.

The one really interesting point that you have raised is spinning up and down of my hard drives.

Just to clarify, I have three Hard Drives (2x2TB Samsung F4s and 1 x 6TB WD Red) that I have drivepooled with a program called Stablebit to create a single 10TB hard drive. The Stablebit comes in two parts but basically together, the software makes sure that reading and streaming is spread evenly over the three disks based upon storage, heat and load.

In light of what you have said, I have just realised that having Windows spindown my hard drives after 5 mins is a really bad idea because.

1. Recording starts, HDD1 starts up to start recording.
2. Recording starts 1 hour later, HDD2 start up to start recording (HDD1 has finished recording and gone to sleep)
3. Recording start 30 minutes later, HDD 3 starts up
4. Recording starts, HDD 1 has to spin up again etc.

What do you think would be the best compromise to save my hard disks? Either turn off spinning down altogether or have it on a much longer spindown time e.g. 3 hours?

Thanks

[DanceswithUnix]

Ah right, my last play with TV recording was with MythTV which doesn't use a pause buffer (I think that is under TiVo patent) but instead records every program on the current channel so if you hit record it just doesn't discard that program like it usually would. That behaviour (and TiVo style buffer reclaim) requires a single storage pool.

Best compromise is really down to your values. If they are spinning up/down a few times a day then that isn't really a problem. Check the data sheets, but I think you are allowed about 10000 spin up/down cycles in which case at 10 per day a drive will still hit the warranty end before running out of cycles.

Turning off spin down will make the machine a lot noisier. Well, the Samsungs are probably OK but I find my WD Red drives a little noisy.

Otherwise, I have a series one TiVo that has been recording continuously to hard drive for 15 years now? I usually replace them because I can cheaply upgrade the drive to a bigger one, not because of failure, and the drives on that don't ever spin down.