SSDs vs HDDs or SSDs AND HDDs

SSD Benefits

It’s a fact that SSDs are much more expensive (at least 2x) than HDDs and that their capacity tops out around 4TBs where current 3.5-inch HDDs max out at 10TB, with 2.5-inch drives at 3TB max, but SSDs DO deliver a number of performance benefits. They are faster, smaller, and more durable.

HDD Benefits

By virtue of the fact that HDDs have been around longer, they win on price, capacity, and availability, as any older technology would.  This is not to say that HDDs aren’t a workhorse – we’ve been using them since 1956 with the enormous IBM 350 RAMAC hard drive that held 3.75MB of storage space.

Where the 2 Shall Meet – Hybrid Storage

Scalable hybrid storage arrays are evolving to address the needs of Big Data and Cloud Computing, which are driving a significant amount of growth in HPC (a recent report says the global HPC technology market value is expected to grow $45.81 billion by 2024 thanks to the two forces). Hybrid storage products monitor the data from the HDD and cache the most frequently accessed bits to improve future performance.

These hybrid storage arrays allow small file and large file workloads to be addressed from a single hybridized application. The ability to balance workloads with various file sizes is critical as companies and organizations move toward processing and storing more massive sets of data.

Hybrid storage arrays from RAID offer 6TB NL drive support, and are one of the few systems where the block storage can scale to 1.4 petabytes (PBs).  These arrays also offer features that overcome the two major limitations found in most tiered storage systems today by (1) automating the migration of data in (2) real-time.

Stay tuned to our blog to learn more about Hybrid Storage Arrays to see how to maximize performance and scalability for your storage.