Tag: SSD

AWS “High I/O” EC2 instances

2012-July-19

A while back I commented on Amazon’s DynamoDB and disagreed with the viewpoint from HighScalability.com that using SSD for storage was a “radical step.” In my comments, I predicted that

We will see SSD replace mag disk as a mainstream storage technology, sooner than most of us think.

And,

Amazon will just fold [SSD] into its generic store.

Now, Amazon has announced the availability of “high I/O” instances of EC2. They offer 2 TB of local SSD-backed storage, visible to the OS as a pair of 1 TB volumes.
The SSD storage is local to the instance.

Was that sooner than you thought?

Next question:  which compute tasks are not well-suited to deployment on “high I/O” instances of EC2?

The only reason Amazon describes these instances as “high I/O” is that they have a ton of existing magnetic disk already deployed.  We should all begin to think of  SSD-backed storage as “standard”, and magnetic platters as “low I/O”. People will rapidly refuse to pay the magnetic disk tax. It’s silly to pay for CPU that is spent waiting for heads to meet up with the appropriate location on a magnetic platter.

Going forward, the “High I/O” moniker will disappear, as it will be cheaper for Amazon to deploy and operate SSD. There may be a price premium today for “High I/O” but that is driven by temporary scarcity, not by actual operational costs.

What Amazon will do with all its magnetic drives is an open question, but be assured it will turn them off. The savings in A/C costs alone, associated to dissipating the heat generated by mechanical drives, will compel Amazon to transition rapidly to full SSD.

Resources:

 

Windows Azure goes SSD

2012-June-10

In a previous post I described DynamoDB, the SSD-backed storage service from Amazon, as a sort of half-step toward better scalability.

With the launch of new Azure services from Microsoft, it appears that Microsoft will offer SSD, too.  Based on the language used in that report — The new “storage hardware” is thought to include solid state drives (SSDs) —  this isn’t confirmed, but it sure looks likely.

I haven’t looked at the developer model for Azure to find out if the storage provisioning is done automatically and transparently, as I suggested it should be in my prior post.  I’ll be interested to compare Microsoft’s offering with DynamoDB in that regard.

In any case, notice is now given to mag disk drives: do not ask for whom the bell tolls.