Have Spinning Disks Spun Their Last Spin?
While legacy hard disk platters spin their way into history, solid-state drives are reborn, the child of transformational demand for large, reliable, scalable, cost-effective, and low-latency disk technologies.
While the PC versus Mac debate enters its fourth decade (we’ll only pause briefly here while you do the math on that one and discover that I’m right), there is no question which side (SSD or traditional HDD) is gaining ground in the battle for storage technology domination. Whether you are reading this on a PC or Mac (or even that new ChromeBook, iPad, or other portable device), if it’s configured with a solid-state drive (SSD), it is going to boot up quickly, and then open, run, and copy data faster.
With the emergence of SSD (aka flash), many of us are wondering if the era of the hard disk is spinning down. Are its final days numbered? Declining prices for SSD point to what I believe is an inevitable conclusion… “Yes.” Especially in live production environments.
Offsite and archival applications might still be home to traditional spinning disks; however, if recent cost and capacity trends continue, newer SSD technology may very well spell doom for traditional hard disk drive (HDD) technology. As predicted by many leading industry experts, the time has finally arrived when the replacement of legacy HDD hardware with newer SSD/flash storage makes sense. This shift is largely due to strong customer demand and an overall total lower cost to operate SSD in enterprise environments.
Adapting to this change from disks that spin to more quiet, non-moving flash storage, can yield the following advantages:
- Speed (faster data read and write operations)
- Less power consumption
- Less fragmentation
- Less administrative overhead
- Low latency (at a sub-millisecond level)
- Low noise
- Durability (no moving parts)
Although vendors have tried to improve spinning disks by adding flash as a buffer on each disk, at the end of the day it comes down to simple physics. We are already spinning those disks as fast as we can without them literally blowing up into pieces. Disks can only spin so fast. Plus, these efforts beg the question, “Since you are adding flash to the disk, why not just buy a flash disk?”
Vendors such as EMC, Pure, and Violin have helped drive down the overall costs of all-flash solutions and the market is trending this way supported by other so-called hybrid arrays adopting an all-flash approach. EMC Unity, VMAX, and VNX are among the new product lines offering all-flash options. Storage is still very much alive and plays a pivotal role in this industry. Moreover, I would argue that it has even been reborn, the child of transformational demand for large, reliable, scalable, cost-effective, and low-latency disk technologies.
Customers that have already adopted SSD/flash and those who are curious should consider transitioning toward more modern data center technologies including all-flash solutions. In fact, I no longer consider SSD/flash to be a disruptive, emerging, or revolutionary new technology. I believe flash is the new normal thanks to the following leading indicators:
- Affordability (attractive price points)
- Agility and speed
- Efficient performance
- Significant market growth in recent years
- Multiple vendors with competitive offerings
With its small footprint and low cost, SSD/flash is extremely versatile and integrates into even the smallest deployment. SSD/flash delivers superior performance marked by sub-millisecond response times to ensure mission-critical applications remain available, responsive, and predictably consistent. At CDI, we are seeing firsthand proof that companies can start small, enter the market, and grow big without losing any agility or performance. I personally see the benefits of SSD/flash storage technologies everyday, including high-availability uptime rates (99.9999%) and compatible solutions that combine disaster recovery with business continuity and data protection.
As both an engineer and architect in the field, I want to encourage you to rethink the future of your data center and harness the power of SSD/flash as a significant factor influencing your hybrid cloud roadmap. As more and more clients adopt SSD/flash in their development and test environments, they tell me that they realize and appreciate the stability and performance. They continue to transition their top production environments and mission-critical applications to this smart new storage solution.