Suggestions for SSD replacement of aging Enterprise HDDs

Hullo all,

One of my Linux storage servers has a RAID1 (mirror) setup using two WD Re 1Tb enterprise drives. The RAID is setup using mdadm.

The existing hard drives are getting a little old and I would like to replace them with SSDs.

I need at least 800Gb at this time so I suspect I’m looking for 1.2Tb - 2Tb SSDs but I would like to get enterprise-class devices which provide power-loss protection.

What are your suggestion as regards either used (eBay, etc) or new these days?

Any info appreciated, it has been too long since I bought enterprise hardware for my job :slight_smile:

TIA!

I’m assuming you’re aiming for SATA SSD’s, correct? This may be a chance for you to upgrade your storage to PCIe speeds, either U.2 or NVMe. There’s little between a plain SATA and M.2 drive, for a WD Red 2TB SSD:

  • 2.5" SATA: 137€
  • M.2 2280 SATA : 138€
  • M.2 2280 NVMe: 160€

WD doesn’t have a 2TB U.2 drive (or any U.2 drive as I can’t find any) so a comparable U.2 drive would be the Kingston DC1500M 1,92 TB, which retails at 175€. Source of all pricing info: Alternate.nl

Of course, going M.2 or U.2 requires an adapter, those are fairly cheap on Aliexpress: you can find PCIe to 2x M.2 adapter cards for 10-25€, PCIe to U.2 (only available as single) are around the same price (but you need 2) and of course the 2.5" SATA drive doesn’t require an adapter anyway, assuming your drive trays can mount 2.5" drives in the first place.

FYI: there are cable sets allowing U.2 drives to be mounted as regular 2.5" drives and have a cable connected to a M.2 slot. These aren’t breaking the bank either. It does require the drive cage not to have a backplane to allow said cables to attach to the U.2 drives.

Downside of Aliexpress: you’ll be waiting a while before it arrives, but the same goes for ebay purchases, especially not from your region/country/continent. :wink:

Indeed, I am - sorry I should have been more precise.

Funnily enough, your answer wasn’t quite what I was expecting but it certainly is a neat idea.

The existing storage is 2 mirrors (OS mirror, data mirror) in a SuperMicro 5017C-MTF 1U server.

Hence my initial thoughts towards SATA-only, however, as you say, PCIe yields benefits and I just checked and the motherboard ( Super X9SCL-F ) has two x8 PCIe 3.0 slots.

Nice one - thankyou for the response and the idea!

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