Re: [tlug] Making better use of SSDs?

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

Hi Kalin,


On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@example.com> wrote:
>> 1)  Well, make it into a drive.  This would only benefit programs that
>> have a lot of I/O or programs like Unix's 'sort' which can allow you
>> to specify which temporary directory to use.  I can just specify the
>> SSD drive.
>>
> Well, if you ever sort things that cannot fit in memory, I guess it will work...
> But what about using a database?


Sorry, the sorting was just an example.  It's the program that came to
mind that has an option to specify a temporary directory.  Not all
programs have that.

The software that's being used is open source, but not developed [by
others] with this in mind.  I mean, with an option to make use of a
temporary directory.  Input/output happens at the beginning and end of
the program and not throughout.  So, I don't think using the SSD as a
drive would help much.


> swap is generally not considered these days as a viable option, no
> matter if it is HDD or SDD. If you are doing so much calculations
> (exceeding RAM), use a cluster or other way of to distribute the load.
...
> As long as you are in control of the software/OS (i.e. you are not
> running proprietary unoptimized software in a corner case), you are
> better spending some time thinking of how to distribute the execution
> than purchasing SSDs. And start with RAM if you are going that way,
> anyway.


Thanks for the quick calculation!  And yes, we have full control over
the software and OS.

Distributing the load across clusters hasn't come up yet as an option.
 We aren't buying enough computers at this time to be considered a
cluster.  :-)  But that may be considered in the future...

Thanks for the advice!

Ray