Factors affecting direct attached storage device performance in the application layer

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Introduction
Processor and memory performance has grown in step with Moore’s Law, getting faster and smaller.
However, storage performance has lagged far behind, creating a significant bottleneck to system
performance. Today more IT dollars are spent on storage-centric applications such as database, data
warehousing, and virtualized workloads than on compute-centric applications.
Choosing the best server storage options for your computing environment requires an understanding of
storage devices and your own storage needs. HP offers enterprise storage options based on two
technologies: hard disk drives (HDDs) or Solid State drives (SSDs). This paper identifies characteristics of
enterprise HDDs and SSDs, including their I/O performance and reliability. It also explains the
environments and applications for which different types of drives are best suited.
Characteristics of HP enterprise-class drives
HP provides server storage solutions using either spinning magnetic media (HDDs) or solid state NAND
based technology (SSDs).
We design HP enterprise HDDs for use in unconstrained (24x7x365 up to 100% write) I/O workloads.
They are for mission-critical applications such as large databases, e-mail servers, and back-office
applications. They provide maximum reliability, highest performance, and error management under the
most demanding conditions.
We also have three enterprise classes of SSD solutions: Value, Mainstream, and Performance. Enterprise
Value SSDs give you relatively large storage capacities at low costs. They are best suited for high read (for
example, boot) environments where the workload is high read/low write. Enterprise Mainstream SSDs are
suited for high I/O applications with a workload balanced between read and write. Enterprise Performance
SSDs have similar capacities to Mainstream SSDs but are suited for mission-critical environments with
workloads high in both read and write applications. Table 1 summarizes characteristics of HP enterprise-
class drives.