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I have various firewall/router/utility type boxes that do not require much if any storage for their primary purpose other than booting. But I do like to be able to put a more or less standard CentOS/RHEL install on them which takes a few gig. So I normally end up mirroring two small hard drives. Recently VARs have been proposing boxes with a single SSD like the Intel X-25M 40G on the theory that a single drive is simpler/takes up less space/draws less power (all important factors to me).

Any opinions on whether a single SSD is better than a pair of HDs?

Tracy Reed
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Tracy Reed
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2 Answers2

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What's your definition of "better"?

Will it be faster? Probably.

Will it require less power? Yes.

Will it be more reliable? Maybe not. Even if a single SSD proves to be more reliable than a single standard hard drive (which is up for debate), your data is still not protected from a single-drive failure like it would be in a RAID1 scenario. Additionally, data recovery methods for failed SSD drives are not anywhere close what they are for standard hard drives, so if you have an SSD fail, it's likely you can kiss that data goodbye unless you have it backed up, whereas with a standard hard drive, there are many methods (some expensive, some cheap) that you can employ to get data off of the drive.

EEAA
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Sure it can but the idea of replacing a system with redundancy with one that has a single point of failure surely can't be a good thing. If you feel absolutely compelled to replace the spinning drives with solid state at least keep the mirroring, which of course means two SSDs. Then, and only then, might it be called "better" in any sense that matters.

John Gardeniers
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