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US Supercomputer Uses Flash Storage Drives

Posted by timothy on from the every-subsystem-counts dept.

angry tapir writes "The San Diego Supercomputer Center has built a high-performance computer with solid-state drives, which the center says could help solve science problems faster than systems with traditional hard drives. The flash drives will provide faster data throughput, which should help the supercomputer analyze data an 'order of magnitude faster' than hard drive-based supercomputers, according to Allan Snavely, associate director at SDSC. SDSC intends to use the HPC system — called Dash — to develop new cures for diseases and to understand the development of Earth."

1 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Depends on how/when/where/what you use SSD's for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    " Why not just add more RAM? SSD is cheaper than DDR ( ~$3/GB vs ~$8/GB ), but also ~100 times slower. - by gabebear (251933) on Sunday September 06, @08:39AM (#29330641) Homepage

    System RAM is SHARED RAM, first of all - more than 1 thing is "going on" in it, @ ALL times (this is not the case w/ using SSD's for specialized tasks (& they tend to EXCEL in webserver or DB server environs & tasks. Proof thereof is here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/8 for ALL KINDS of "Back Office/Server Class" type tasks - this is, by this point, a WIDELY recognized industry fact though...))

    Personally, for more "end-user" type tasks here @ home? Well - I use SSD's here, "true" ones, meaning NOT based on FLASH RAM (with its slower write cycles & inferior longevity).

    ----

    1.) A CENATEK RocketDrive (2gb PC-133 SDRAM, PCI 2.2 133mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

    2.) A GIGABYTE IRAM (4gb DDR-400 RAM, SATA 1 150mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

    ----

    I use TRUE SSD's in this manner here for performance gains:

    ----

    1.) Pagefile.sys placement (all alone by itself on the CENATEK RocketDrive on a 2gb NTFS partition, uncompressed, so it is a "dedicated task" there & that one only).

    2.) WebBrowser Program Caches (all of them in IE, FireFox, & Opera) - &, on an NTFS compressed partition, so the files are even TINIER & pickup that much faster into memory (small offset due to decompression of data into memory, but, today's CPU's & RAM speeds make up for that - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

    3.) OS and application logs (like eventlogs & far more from apps + the OS also - on GIGABYTE IRAM) - again, on an NTFS compressed partition, for the same reasons as above.

    4.) %Temp% &/or %tmp% environment alteration (so app & OS 'temp ops' take place in a higher speed environs & off the main disk too - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

    5.) %Comspec% placement (cmd.exe on Windows NT-based OS' - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

    6.) PRINT SPOOLER location (on GIGABYTE IRAM)

    ----

    So, that all "said & aside"? What kind of performance gains do I see, & how do they work? Ok:

    ----

    A.) Faster seek/access to said files, especially since they're small & OF BOTH "READ/WRITE NATURE" (which normal RAM types FLY on, vs. FLASH, & no "writeback caching" required really).

    B.) A lot less "read/write head movement contention" on my main OS + Programs bearing HDD's, simply by moving said files + activities from my main HDD's

    C.) No fragmentation of my main OS + Programs bearing diskdrive from said activities &/or files I moved from my main OS + Program bearing HDD's

    ----

    That's also "borne out" by tests OTHERS RAN, an example of the likes of which, is here -> http://hothardware.com/Articles/Gigabyte-IRAM-Storage-Device1/?page=3 OR here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/5 as well as many other technically oriented websites online.

    (The gains seen? Hey, they only make complete sense, as the types of RamDrives/RamDisks/SSD's I use here are (respectively as listed above) based on PC-133 SDRAM &/or DDR-400 here, because they're F A S T E R by far & do not need "writeback caching" to offset write performance hits FLASH RAM has)... FLASH based units are fine for reads, but not so fine for writes (though writeback caches CAN offset this some).

    Plus - as you can see above? Well - I do a great deal of tasks that need BOTH read and WRITE speeds here on SSD's, & I go into them above in my 2nd list (&, they work - you can try them yourself IF you have an SSD of the type I use especially (not FLASH RAM based)).

    Nor do they require measures (that have overheads mind you) like "garbage cleanup" &/or "wear-levelling" engines to function properly,