Recently I wrote a blog on a basic breakdown of flash technology. For this round, I’m going to delve a little deeper into the subject of storage and your organization.
As you probably know, flash storage offers a lot of benefits. No moving parts, requires less power, read/writes very quickly. It’s a perfect upgrade in certain respects, and it’s finding a place within the IT infrastructure more and more often. That’s right, it’s for more than just notebooks and desktops. It can be used right in the heart of your organization’s data center. But is this always the case?
You’ve heard the good, but what about the bad? Well, flash can’t be everything to everybody. There are certain situations that require flash and others that don’t. A storage array is a perfect example of where flash is a very good idea. It can handle the load faster than typical hard drives can – even those rated for enterprise storage.
To discover if it’s right for you, all you really have to do is examine your situation and ask yourself:
• What kinds of applications are you running?
• What is the performance expectation of the end users?
• Are your storage servers actively used or are they for deep archiving?
If your users need lightning-fast access or you’re running an application server, then flash storage is the way to go. However, if you have a data server that’s rarely accessed, then stick with a run-of-the-mill hard drive or hybrid flash.
Hybrid storage – a traditional hard drive with built-in flash memory – allows a business to take advantage of flash storage at a lower cost. It lets you access commonly used files quickly, while keeping seldom-used files on a slower partition.
At Connection we’re finding that hybrid or a mix of hybrid and full-flash storage works best for most of our customers. We suggest you stick to flash when you need pure performance and stick to the spinning disk when you need capacity. Between the two, you’ll end up with a very cost-effective solution.
If you have questions about your storage situation, you can always call on
Connection, or view this video for more information. We offer no-obligation assessments that help discover the right path for your storage infrastructure.
