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0 pointsksec9y ago0 comments

Yes but when you are looking at Petabyte scale system, unless those data are Hot and IOPs are concerned, HDD still wins given it is 10x cheaper.

And NAND has already hit the curve where it isn't going to get cheaper every year. NAND price is actually on the rise. Smaller Node is now actually more expensive, multiple layer are hard to yield.

So relatively speaking the 10x gap between HDD and SSD wont change in the next 5 years or so.

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LeifCarrotson9y ago

It is not 10x cheaper, it is only cheaper to purchase initially.

It is cheaper to power (NAND is more energy efficient than an electric motor), it is cheaper to maintain (solid state media does not suffer mechanical failures), and it is cheaper to use (each query on an SSD takes slightly less time than on spinning media).

It's only 10x cheaper if you ignore those facts. Now, how you value those factors may vary. Also, I have been involved in enough purchasing decisions to know that while capex is easy to approve and opex is hard, the initial number is surprisingly important.

sandworm1019y ago

I think you overestimate the cost of electricity over the expected life of a drive. These arent space heaters. Pennies per day, adding up to perhaps tens of dollars difference between the two options.

ksecOP9y ago

I see, may be you should tell Blackblaze to switch over to SSD for their business model?

LeifCarrotson9y ago

Backblaze is in the backup industry, where fetch times don't really matter. When you have customers sensitive to app response time buying stuff, or engineers limited by how many times they can go through the edit-test cycle in 8 hours and "test" relies on how fast your media responds, then it matters.

JumpCrisscross9y ago

> the 10x gap between HDD and SSD

It's a 4 to 6x gap [1].

[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404258,00.asp

ksecOP9y ago

1TB 2.5" HDD? You need to compare the sweet spot for SSD and HDD ( 3.5" ). And HDD easily outpace SSD, and 10x is only a generalization, in fact given the price of SSD is rising and HDD is slowing dropping, the sweet spot between the two is actually edging close to 20x soon.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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LeifCarrotson9y ago

It is not 10x cheaper, it is only cheaper to purchase initially.

sandworm1019y ago

ksecOP9y ago

I see, may be you should tell Blackblaze to switch over to SSD for their business model?

LeifCarrotson9y ago

JumpCrisscross9y ago

> the 10x gap between HDD and SSD

It's a 4 to 6x gap [1].

[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404258,00.asp

ksecOP9y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse