All SSD array?

[SVThuh]

Hi all, I'm currently running a 36tb Unraid array on spinning platters.  I'm considering making the switch to all SSD's via Crucial MX500 4tb drives (I can get a killer deal on these).  Any issue running all SSD's?  How is the life expectancy?  I've seen some past posts about these particular drives not playing very nice and was wondering if that is still an issue?  

 

I appreciate the feedback!

[whipdancer]

I ran Crucial MX500's as cache for about 3 months.  They constantly generated errors. After some research, I replaced them.  Won't use that model ever again.  Likely won't ever use Crucial SSD again, outside of windows (which corrects the errors automatically).

Life expectancy will probably be less than half of a traditional HD.

Edited November 12, 2021 by whipdancer

[JorgeB]

They have a known issue, but you can just disable monitoring that attribute, I have a pool with seven MX500 running for years without problems.

[whipdancer]

Quote

I have a pool with seven MX500 running for years without problems

And I ran the notorious Seagate drives for years without issue.  Doesn't mean there wasn't a problem, just that my anecdotal experience with didn't encounter the problem.

AFAIK, this is only an issue with Crucial.  It is a bug in their firmware that they have not been able to fix.  There are too many alternatives that don't have this issue for me to give Crucial my money.

Edited November 13, 2021 by whipdancer
clarity

[JorgeB]

16 hours ago, whipdancer said:

Doesn't mean there wasn't a problem

There's a firmware problem with false positives about pending sectors, it has nothing to do with reliabilty.

[SVThuh]

11 hours ago, JorgeB said:

There's a firmware problem with false positives about pending sectors, it has nothing to do with reliabilty.

So then there shouldn't really be an issue with running say 8 or 10 of the 4tb MX500 drives as long as I implement a proper TRIM protocol and ignore the false positives?

[JorgeB]

Array devices can't be trimmed, not currently anyway, you can still use them there but there could be some write speed degradation with time.

 

12 hours ago, SVThuh said:

ignore the false positives?

Just disable SMART attribute 197 monitoring.

[Ravarin]

Dang it... just built a new server with 4 2TB SSDs with the drives formatted in XFS.

 

Is there a solution to this? Or am I just up a creek? Does this mean I should just move over to BTRFS?

[JorgeB]

8 hours ago, Ravarin said:

Is there a solution to this?

The false pending sector issue? That's not file system related.

[Ravarin]

No the lack of TRIM on the SSDs if they are in the storage array. For XFS that is an issue (over the long term).

 

So wondering if I need to move my storage drives to BTRFS where this won't be an issue.

[JonathanM]

12 minutes ago, Ravarin said:

For XFS that is an issue (over the long term).

Possibly not, depending on the firmware of the drives in question.

 

Personally I'd recommend just leaving it alone, keeping in mind that an occasional mass migration to empty specific drives in turn if you feel the need.

 

Do you anticipate a high churn rate for the data with lots of changes and deletions?

[JorgeB]

5 hours ago, Ravarin said:

So wondering if I need to move my storage drives to BTRFS where this won't be an issue.

Currently any array assigned device can't be trimmed, regardless of filesystem used.