[C0n]

Excelent thanks for all the help sorry if i sound like a complete ***** i have never encountered a problem like this up until now i just want to make sure i never have this same issue again. As well as to not loose any of my data to something as stupid as a hard drive dieng.

[Criot]

So with 3 SSD's they have it setup like RAID 0 or how do they set it up.

RAID 1 by default unless you choose custom partitioning, in which case I believe you can set them to RAID 0, but that doesn't offer you any data redundancy like RAID 1.

[ctype_alnum]

[C0n]

So with 3 SSD's they have it setup like RAID 0 or how do they set it up.

[Criot]

Also criot you are correct but nothing stops me splitting the data up among 3 hard drives. But apparently from my research there is not difference in speed or anything between Hard Raid and Soft Raid unless anyone in this thread/forum says otherwise ?

This is where i found out the difference between hard and soft raid.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/raid-h...-software.html

Nothing to stop you splitting it ofcourse, but then you don't have RAID, if you use 'JBOD' then you need to have very good efficient backups in place, HDDs will show signs of deterioration when they're going to die, SSDs will just die usually, that's where RAID comes in handy. Personally, I would not use a server which doesn't have RAID, unless the server was only intended for storing backups.

[C0n]

You said everything currently uses 255GB of space, 160GB SSDs wouldn't give you enough storage capacity if they're in RAID?

Also criot you are correct but nothing stops me splitting the data up among 3 hard drives. But apparently from my research there is not difference in speed or anything between Hard Raid and Soft Raid unless anyone in this thread/forum says otherwise ?

This is where i found out the difference between hard and soft raid.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/raid-h...-software.html

[C0n]

Money is not the problem but i want something that will solve the issue and last me a long time i am also not happy with the support on this subject this was my latest reply.

> > Hi
> >
> > It is not possible to pay the difference and upgrade, you would need to order a new server and migrate your data over.
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> >
> > Neil
> >
> > OVH.co.uk

So that means i have to now pay for 2 new servers that cost £74.24 including vat every month.

And ontop of that i have to pay a instilation fee of £84.99.

And since i need two machines it comes to this just to upgrade to a SSD!
PRICE EXCL. VAT £159.23
VAT (20 %) £31.85
TOTAL INCL. VAT £191.08

And that is just one server i have to order another ontop of that -.- all because they don't allow us to upgrade components. So now i have to sit back take a wild guess at my sites content and wounder if some point in the future i will encounter this I/O usage problem again with a SSD. So this month to upgrade and have some SSD i am looking at about £400 and thats a wild guess assuming the solid state drives can take such a vast amount of traffic.

[Criot]

After doing my research benchmarking the easiest and cheapest soloution that should work wounders is the following hard drive.

+3 x 160 GB SSD Intel DC S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsSoftRAID

You said everything currently uses 255GB of space, 160GB SSDs wouldn't give you enough storage capacity if they're in RAID?

[C0n]

After doing my research benchmarking the easiest and cheapest soloution that should work wounders is the following hard drive.

+3 x 160 GB SSD Intel DC S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsSoftRAID

[Criot]

You are using Samsung drives in SYS Game range...

You should consider that the SYS Game Range uses desktop grade hardware whilst OVH uses server grade, just a thought that perhaps they're going for the less expensive hardware for the less expensive range?

[elcct]

That actualy brings up another point i would happly use the soyoustart range except it does not come with the Vrack if it ever came with the Vrack i would be all over it. I also did not like the fact i was being used as a beta tester when i had one (I don't work for free) I kept getting phone calls from OVH asking me how the server was and what new features and things like that i would like to see. Ask me and cut a deal with me to beta test it for you otherwise do not call me.

vRack and at least local 1Gbps network would be awesome

[C0n]

You are using Samsung drives in SYS Game range...

That actualy brings up another point i would happly use the soyoustart range except it does not come with the Vrack if it ever came with the Vrack i would be all over it. I also did not like the fact i was being used as a beta tester when i had one (I don't work for free) I kept getting phone calls from OVH asking me how the server was and what new features and things like that i would like to see. Ask me and cut a deal with me to beta test it for you otherwise do not call me.

[elcct]

Hi

It is not possible to use your own hardware with our servers and there are no plans to use Samsung drives at the moment.

You are using Samsung drives in SYS Game range...

[C0n]

Check what are upgrade prices of existing server and what are upgrades you get before you order the server. There is a difference

Well when you order a new server with this it would be more exspensive because you pay the installation fee. But either way i have to buy a new one because i am dropping one of my old 2013 range servers since it can not handle the I/O consumption and i believe i do not have the choice to upgrade the components upon it.

But this is why i made this post so i could get some advice and ensure i do not have any more problems like this. My CPU and Ram is fine the only thing that gives me grief is the hard drive I/O usage. Has been a big learning curb for me amazes me how YouTube and other media sites must of coped before SSD's came about.

[heise]

Check what are upgrade prices of existing server and what are upgrades you get before you order the server. There is a difference

[C0n]

More money than sense.

Well what drive you recommend ? I saw you said a CDN ( I already use cloudflare as my CDN) but if you are thinking of the amazon cloudfront i can not use them as a CDN since some of the i host videos could be considerd to be pornographic (adult material).

[ctype_alnum]

More money than sense.

[C0n]

Thanks for the information amazingly all the files and things on my current drive only consumes 255GB So perhaps i will go for this hard drive.

2 x 3 TB SATA3 6 Gbps+ 2 x 300 GB SSD Intel S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsHybrid SoftRAID £25.50/month

Another question I have is does this replace the exsisting hard drive on that server or does it get added as a additional hard drive to it.

But since i host media traffic i might do this kind of a setup and essentially turn myself into a CDN and send static traffic via 1 SSD what would be media1.domain.co.uk and then send the static traffic on the other hard drive via media2.domain.co.uk

I already use www.CloudFlare.com but thats only for CSS, JS and Static files such as images and pictures they do not cache videos and videos are the problem of high I/O usage.

[Neil]

I find Intel SSD's to be very exspensive when i did a price comparison Samsung offer more with a faster IOPS at a cheaper price. Intel give you 70-75,000 IOPS but yet a samsung server SSD would give you upto 100,000 IOPS and it is for a cheaper price with more space.

I wonder if OVH would ever let me buy my own and send it to them to plug into the machine.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Seri...dp/B009NB8WTI/

Hi

It is not possible to use your own hardware with our servers and there are no plans to use Samsung drives at the moment.

[heise]

There is no difference for home users, but OVH needs best quality and Intel is superior to Samsung for Datacenter use, AND OVH prefers Intel.

I wonder if OVH would ever let me buy my own and send it to them to plug into the machine.

I don't think they have colocation plans.

[C0n]

I find Intel SSD's to be very exspensive when i did a price comparison Samsung offer more with a faster IOPS at a cheaper price. Intel give you 70-75,000 IOPS but yet a samsung server SSD would give you upto 100,000 IOPS and it is for a cheaper price with more space.

I wonder if OVH would ever let me buy my own and send it to them to plug into the machine.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Seri...dp/B009NB8WTI/

[heise]

+3 x 160 GB SSD Intel DC S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsSoftRAID

If that size is big enough, forget everything else. Otherwise look for bigger SSD. Forget SAS, they may be faster than SATA but loose eyes closed to SSD. They are just cheaper than SSD per GB, but money isn't the problem here, right?

[Criot]

I would rather solve it at the source i just need to know what hard drive out of the list will do the trick because i without a benchmark or telling me what the max I/O usage they can have is i don't feel like dedicating to buying one.

Here's more information on the particular SSD OVH use:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...00-series.html

You'll find that according to Intel, the larger the SSD size the better it performs.

[C0n]

I would rather solve it at the source i just need to know what hard drive out of the list will do the trick because i without a benchmark or telling me what the max I/O usage they can have is i don't feel like dedicating to buying one.

[ctype_alnum]

Put the large files on a CDN and let someone else do the heavy lifting. You will solve the I/O issue for awhile but if your users increase or you get more users at once you'll get the same problem again..

[C0n]

My question is what one to go for.

+3 x 3 TB SATA3 6 GbpsSoftRAID
+3 x 160 GB SSD Intel DC S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsSoftRAID
+3 x 3 TB SATA3 6 GbpsHardRAID LSI 9271-4i CacheVault 1 GB
+2 x 3 TB SATA3 6 Gbps+ 2 x 300 GB SSD Intel S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsHybrid SoftRAID
+2 x 3 TB SATA3 6 Gbps+ 2 x 300 GB SSD Intel S3500 SATA3 6 GbpsHardRAID LSI 9271-4i CacheVault 1 GB
+3 x 600 GB SAS 15KHardRAID+ LSI 9271-4i CacheCade 80 GB SSD
+3 x 480 GB SSD Intel DC S3500 SATA3 6 Gbps

The most exspensive one pretty much looks the same as the others to me. (In terms of speed not in disk space)

Also to answer your question yes my webservers deliver multimedia content what does consist of large flv and mp4 files.

[ctype_alnum]

Are you serving large files from your web server?

[elcct]

If I was in your shoes I'd buy SSD - maybe it has a higher price tag, but it comes with peace of mind.

As some say "Once you go SSD, you never go back!"

[C0n]

Well since i run windows servers i did some bench marking of my current hard drive with the following tool called crystalmark.

My current hard drive : http://www.hgst.com/hard-drives/ente...trastar-7k4000

This is the version of crystal mark i benchmarked with http://crystalmark.info/redirect.php...rystalDiskMark
I used their 64bit not the 32bit.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 168.230 MB/s
Sequential Write : 166.230 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 61.540 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 84.223 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.787 MB/s [ 192.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.701 MB/s [ 415.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 2.032 MB/s [ 496.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.389 MB/s [ 339.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 21.9% (427.9/1953.1 GB)] (x9)
Date : 2014/06/29 15:58:08
OS : Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)


And here is a picture i took with process explorer from microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/s.../bb896653.aspx

It shows how much I/O usage nginx is using due to large files mp4 and flv upto 500mb+ in size.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...Untitled-7.png

[Criot]

SAS might handle it fine it really depends on your exact usage, SSD would definitely outperform SAS though.

[C0n]

So i have been discussing this with OVH support since i run windows servers in a very high traffic multi media hosting enviorment.

The problem i have with the current server http://www.ovh.co.uk/dedicated_serve...32.xml#options

Is my I/O usage is very high due to the default hard drive can not keep up with requests from nginx to deliever traffic to the internet, now the way to go about fixing this high I/O usage problem is to upgrade the hard drive but as of what out of the following hard drives OVH have avaliable for me to use is the question.

I believe a SSD is better but i need some advice before dedicating to buying a SSD because a SAS 15K RPM hard drive could do the job at a cheaper price and be better.