On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 14:17, erik quanstrom<quans...@coraid.com> wrote:
> assuming honest mtbf numbers, one would expect similar > ures for the same io workload on the same size data set > as mechanical disks. since flash drives are much smaller, > there would obviously be fewer ures per drive. but needing > 10x more drives, the mtbf would be worse per byte of storage > than enterprise sata drives. so you'd see more overall failures. this depends on usage, obviously. i think it misses the point that there's plenty of applications where the smaller storage (assuming a single unit) is perfectly adequate. i swapped out the HD in my laptop for a SD drive: the reduction in size is entirely workable, and the other benefits make the trade a big win. there're plenty of applications where i need relatively little raw storage: laptops, boot media for network terminals, embedded things. for large-scale storage, your analysis is much more appropriate. my file server remains based on spinning magnetic disks, and i expect that's likely to be the case for a long time.
