Lenovo Enterprise Solid State Drives for IBM System x Servers User Guide

Enterprise Solid State Drives
for IBM System x Servers
User Guide

Enterprise Solid State Drives for IBM System x Servers

IBM® Solid State Drives (SSDs) use nonvolatile flash memory rather than spinning magnetic media to store data. Designed for enterprise blades and servers, the SSDs leverage the extensive history of IBM of meeting enterprise customer expectations in product development, qualification, and ongoing support on a worldwide basis. IBM offers the highest quality enterprise storage devices for enterprise computing environments.
IBM SSDs deliver the performance, power, size, and reliability required for IBM BladeCenter® and IBM System x® application servers. For cost-effective reliability and endurance, and to let customers chose the correct drive to meet business requirements, the IBM SSD family offers both SLC and enterprise- grade MLC technology. With up to 200 GB capacity in a 1.8-inch form factor, this powerful drive provides data loss protection upon power failure. In addition, IBM SSDs support the SATA interface,  meaning that there are no compatibility issues. Figure 1 shows a 1.8″ solid state drive.

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In terms of I/O operations per second, SSDs can be used in enterprise environments to replace multiple traditional spinning disks, thereby improving application performance, power consumption, reliability, and the total cost of ownership. However, SSDs can also be used as a fast virtual memory paging device to reduce the need for more expensive memory DIMMs, which can lead to reduced server acquisition costs.
SSDs simplify local storage infrastructure to help maintain overall maintenance and cooling cost, while providing remote storage solutions for end-to-end data availability as part of the enterprise ecosystem. SSDs are an appropriate solution for local OS booting, read-intensive applications, and some local storage space. Having originally been developed for the telco and federal marketplace, these SATA-based drives are highly rugged and reliable, and consume very low power. Increasingly, solid state storage is becoming a practical component in balancing datacenter cost, reliability, and manageability.

Part number information

Table 1 lists the information for ordering part numbers and feature codes.
Table 1. Ordering part numbers and feature codes

† x-config feature code

• Withdrawn, not available for ordering.

SSD technology

SSDs differ from traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) in many ways, but there is one key difference: no moving parts. Where HDDs contain spinning disks and movable heads that read and write data on the disks, SDDs use solid-state (chip-based) memory to store data. This difference provides SSDs with the following advantages over HDDs:

• High performance input/output operations per second (IOPS): Significantly increases performance I/O subsystems.
• Durability: Less susceptible to physical shock and vibration.
• Longer lifespans: SSDs are not susceptible to mechanical wear.
• Lower power consumption: SSDs use as little as 2.1 watts of power per drive.
• Quieter and cooler running capabilities: Less floor space required, lower energy costs, and a greener enterprise.
• Lower access times and latency rates: About 10 times faster than the spinning disks in an HDD.

SSDs use NAND-based nonvolatile flash memory, the same technology used by USB storage devices, memory cards, mobile phones, and other portable electronic devices that require data storage. However, the type of NAND flash memory that an SSD employs for data storage and retrieval is a key factor for determining the appropriate environment for which the device is employed. Where one methodology might be adequate for the type of usage and environment that the device is intended for (such as a laptop model designed for the consumer market), it might not be feasible for enterprise-class markets where highperformance standards and reliability are key factors for data
storage.
Two methods currently exist for facilitating NAND flash memory: single-level cell (SLC) and multi-level cell (MLC). The following sections provide information about each of these technologies.
Single-level cell (SLC) SSDs
SLC flash memory stores data in arrays of floating-gate transistors, or cells, 1 bit of data to each cell. This single bit per cell methodology results in faster transfer speeds, higher reliability, and lower power consumption than that provided by HDDs. SLC SSDs are two-to-three times more expensive to manufacture than MLC devices.

Multi-level cell (MLC) SSDs

The basic difference between SLC flash memory and MLC flash memory technologies is storage density.
In comparison with SLC flash memory, which allows only two states to be stored in a cell, thereby storing only one bit of data per cell, MLC flash memory is capable of storing up to four states per cell, yielding two bits of data stored per cell.
Tables 2 and 3 illustrate the differences.

Table 2. SLC single-bit flash memory states

Table 3. MLC dual-bit flash memory states

MLC flash memory can be further delineated into two categories:

• Consumer-grade MLC (cMLC): Used in consumer (single user) devices such as USB storage devices, memory cards, mobile phones, and so on.
• Enterprise-grade MLC (eMLC): Designed specifically for use in commercial (multiple-user) enterprise environments.

Both cMLC and eMLC flash memory have the advantage of higher data density and the resultant lower cost-per-bit ratio. For practical reasons, this is where the similarities end. The high-density storage model employed by both technologies results in lower write endurance ratios and higher rates of cell degradation than SLC flash memory, greatly reducing the lifetime of the device. For cMLC devices, this does not pose any issues, as the lifetime expectancies are considered adequate for consumer-grade devices. This makes cMLC flash memory ideal for lower-cost, consumer-targeted devices such as memory cards and mobile devices, where cost and market factors outweigh performance and durability.
eMLC provides longer endurance through trimming of components and optimizing certain parameters in the firmware. In addition, eMLC SSDs employ over- provisioning data storage capacity and wear-leveling algorithms that evenly distribute data when the drives are not being heavily utilized. This results in a sixfold increase in write cycles and reduced concerns about cell degradation. While it does not yet match the performance and durability SLC flash memory, it still exceeds lifetime expectancy requirements for
enterprise applications.
For industries where enterprise performance and durability is essential, IBM SSDs employ eMLC NAND flash memory to leverage the cost-effective characteristics of MLC flash memory with the performance and reliability of SLC technology.
Table 4 shows the NAND flash memory types used in each currently available SSD option.
Table 4. SSD technology used

• Withdrawn from marketing, not available for ordering.

Features and benefits

Table 5 provides a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of SLC and MLC flash. As shown in Table 3, the IBM SSD options are all either SLC or eMLC. As a result, the feature discussions below apply to those technologies and not cMLC.
Table 5. Benefits of SLC and MLC

| SLC| cMLC| eMLC| HDD
---|---|---|---|---
High density| N| Y| Y| Y
Low cost per bit| N| Y| Y| Y
Durability| Y| N| Y| N
Low power consumption| Y| Y| Y| N
Read/write speeds (IOPS) (4 K blocks)| 4000/1600| 20,000/3000| 30,000/20,000| 320/180
Data stability| Y| N| Y| N
Projected life| 5 years| 1 year| 5 years| 5 years

High-density storage
As explained in the previous section, the MLC flash memory methods employ multiple bit-per-cell technology, thus resulting in higher data density compared to SLC technology. This means that drives are available in larger capacities.
Cost per bit
At present, HDD storage still has a clear pricing advantage, with a cost per gigabyte ratio as high as 1:10 compared with SDD storage, depending on factors such as drive size, array configuration, and the type of NAND flash memory used (SLC flash cost-per-bit is three times as much as MLC flash). However, this gap has been closing as SDD technology becomes less expensive and more prevalent.
One solution to offset costs is to use SDDs for server drives that only perform the most I/O-intensive operations, such as boot drives, caching, and swap space. This provides lower latency rates and higher throughput for application-critical operations. SDDs can also be employed in RAID arrays for fault tolerance and data sharing.
Durability

Because flash memory does not have the mechanical limitations of traditional spinning hard drives, SSDs are less susceptible to shock and vibration and have a higher tolerance for wide temperature and humidity ranges.

Low power consumption
Replacing HDDs with SSDs results in a lower cost and greener enterprise. Because there are fewer storage devices needed, fewer resources (such as controllers, switches, and racks) are needed, resulting in:

• A smaller footprint in the enterprise
• Quieter operation
• Reduced cooling requirements
• Reduced power requirements
• Reduced floor space

These reductions result in an overall lower total cost of ownership.

Performance

Because there are no moving parts, startup times are small because no spin-up or seek time is required.
For example, when an HDD retrieves a large file, it searches for the file in passes with each revolution of the spinning disk, resulting in access times of 10 – 15 ms on average. An SSD can retrieve the same file as quickly as 0.1 ms. This makes SDD server usage ideal for applications where throughput is more important than capacity, such as video distribution and financial analysis.
The improved application performance of SSDs results in increased and more reliable transactions in less time. A comparison of IBM high-performance SSDs with traditional enterprise-level HDDs demonstrates a dramatic increase in overall I/O operations per second (IOPS), as shown in Table 6.
Table 6. IOPS comparison

| HDD (3.5″ 15 K)| HDD (2.5″ 15 K)| SLC SSD| MLC SSD
---|---|---|---|---
Write IOPS| 300| 250| 1600| 20,000
Read IOPS| 390| 300| 4000| 30,000
Cost per IOPS ($)| $0.52 (146 GB)| $0.83 (146 GB)| $0.09 (50 GB)| $0.04 (50 GB)

Note: All results with 4 K block transfers
Stated another way, if your application’s demands can be met by implementing a large RAID array of HDDs, you can use far fewer SSDs and achieve the same performance.
Data reliability
SLC and eMLC solid-state drives utilize several techniques to ensure data stability and retention:

• Wear-leveling algorithms that evenly distribute data across the drive.
• Garbage collection that uses an algorithm to select the blocks in the memory to erase and rewrite.
• For correctable errors, the drives use an ECC scheme (twenty-four 9-bit symbols using Reed Solomon).
• For uncorrectable errors, the drives use the Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements (RAISE) scheme, which allows the controller to rebuild data that was located on a failed flash page or block somewhere else on the drive.
• For undetectable errors, there is data path protection (CRC-32 bit).

SATA

Migrating your enterprise storage to SSD is relatively painless because solid state drives support the SATA protocol used by HDDs. Coexistence is also possible because of this. Figure 2 shows the x3690 X5 with 1.8-inch SSDs and 2.5-inch SAS drive bays.

Specifications

Table 7 presents technical specifications for the 2.5-inch drives and Table 8 presents the specifications for the 1.8-inch drives.
Table 7. Specifications – 2.5-inch drives

Specification| IBM 50GB SATA 2.5″ SFF Slim- HS
High lOPS SSD| IBM 50GB SATA
2.5″ SFF HS High lOPS SSD| IBM 50GB SATA
2.5″ SFF NHS High lOPS
SSD| IBM 200 GB SATA
2.5″ MLC HS SSD| IBM 200 GB SATA
2.5″ MLC SS SSD
---|---|---|---|---|---
Part number| 43W7714| 43W7722| 43W7706| 43W7718| 43W7742
Interface| SATA I| SATA I| SATA I| SATA II| SATA II
Hot-swap drive| Yes| Yes| No| Yes| No
Form factor| 2.5″ SFF| 2.5″ SFF| 2.5″ SFF| 2.5″ SFF| 2.5″ SFF
Capacity| 50 GB| 50 GB| 50 GB| 200 GB| 200 GB
lOPS read| 4000| 4000| 4000| 30,000| 30,000
lOPS write| 1600| 1600| 1600| 20,000| 20,000
Sequential read rate| 80 MBps| 80 MBps| 80 MBps| 250 MBps| 250 MBps
Sequential write rate| 50 MBps| 50 MBps| 50 MBps| 250 MBps| 250 MBps
Shock, operating| 2 ms: 60 Gs| 2 ms: 60 Gs| 2 ms: 60 Gs| 2 ms: 200 Gs| 2 ms: 200 Gs
Shock, nonoperating| 2 ms: 300 Gs| 2 ms: 300 Gs| 2 ms: 300 Gs| 1 ms: 1500 Gs| 1 ms: 1500 Gs
Temperature, operating| 0 – 70°C| 0 – 70°C| 0 – 70°C| 0 – 70°C| 0 – 70°C
Temperature,
nonoperating| -40 – 70°C| -40 – 70°C| -40 – 70°C| -40 – 90°C| -40 – 90°C
Power operating| 2.1 W| 2.1 W| 2.1 W| 2.0 W| 2.0 W
Power idle| 0.5 W| 0.5 W| 0.5 W| 0.6 W| 0.6 W

• Results with 4 KB block transfers
  Table 8. Specifications – 1.8-inch drives

Specification| IBM 50GB SATA 1.8″ MLC SSD| IBM 200GB SATA 1.8″ MLC SSD
---|---|---
Part number| 43W7726| 43W7746
Interface| SATA II| SATA II
Hot-swap drive| Yes| Yes
Form factor| 1.8″ SFF| 1.8″ SFF
Capacity| 50 GB| 200 GB
lOPS read| 20,000| 20,000
lOPS write| 3000| 3000
Sequential read rate| 140 MBps| 150 MBps
Sequential write rate| 18 MBps| 35 MBps
Shock, operating| 1 ms: 1500 Gs| 1 ms: 1500 Gs
Shock, nonoperating| 1 ms: 1500 Gs| 1 ms: 1500 Gs
Temperature, operating| 0 – 70°C| 0 – 70°C
Temperature, nonoperating| -40 – 90°C| -40 – 90°C
Power operating| 1 W| 1 W
Power idle| 0.8 W| 0.8 W

• Results with 4 KB block transfers

Warranty
There is a 1-year, customer-replaceable unit (CRU), limited warranty.

Supported servers

The solid state drives and supported RAID controllers can be installed in the System x and IBM iDataPlex® servers identified in Table 9 and the BladeCenter and IBM Flex System™ servers identified in Table 10.
Table 9. Supported System x and iDataPlex servers (Part 1)

† x-config feature code

• Withdrawn, not available for ordering.
  Table 9. Supported System x and iDataPlex servers (Part 2)

† x-config feature code

• Withdrawn, not available for ordering.
  Table 10. Supported BladeCenter and Flex System servers
  

† x-config feature code

• Withdrawn, not available for ordering.
  See the IBM ServerProven® website for the latest compatibility information for System x, BladeCenter, iDataPlex and Flex System servers: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/

Supported storage controllers

The solid-state drives require a supported disk controller. Table 11 lists the System x controllers that support solid-state drives installed in a supported server. Table 12 lists the BladeCenter and Flex System controllers that support solid-state drives installed in a supported server.
Table 11. RAID controllers for System x and iDataPlex servers supported with internal SSDs (Part 1)

† x-config feature code
Table 11. RAID controllers for System x and iDataPlex servers supported with internal SSDs (Part 2)

† x-config feature code
Table 12. RAID controllers for BladeCenter and Flex System servers supported with internal SSDs

† x-config feature code
See the IBM ServerProven website for the latest information about the adapters supported by each System x server type: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/

Supported operating systems

Solid state drives operate transparently to users, storage systems, applications, databases, and operating systems. The controllers that support SSDs are supported by the following operating systems:

•  Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Foundation
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Web x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Web x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2 Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for AMD64/EM64T
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for x86
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition with Xen
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server with Xen x64 Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server x64 Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server x64 Edition
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 for AMD64/EM64T
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 for x86
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64/EM64T
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for x86
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
• VMware ESX 4.0
• VMware ESX 4.1
• VMware ESXi 4.0
• VMware ESXi 4.1
• VMware vSphere 5

See the IBM ServerProven website for the latest information about the specific versions and service packs supported: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/. Click System x servers, then Disk controllers to see the support matrix. Click the check mark that is associated with the System x server in question to see the details of the operating system support.

Related publications

For more information see to the following documents:
IBM Redbooks® at-a-glance guide for ServeRAID M5015 and M5014 SAS/SATA Controllers
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0738.html?Open
IBM Redbooks at-a-glance guide for the ServeRAID B5015 SSD Controller
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0763.html?Open
ServeRAID M5015 and M5014 SAS/SATA Controllers User’s Guide
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIGR-5082936
System x RAID products home page
http://ibm.com/systems/x/options/storage/solidstate/
IBM ServeRAID software matrix
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1SERV-RAID
IBM System x Configuration and Options Guide
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1SCOD-3ZVQ5W

Related product families

Product families related to this document are the following:

• Drives

Notices

Lenovo may not offer the products, services, or features discussed in this document in all countries. Consult your local Lenovo representative for information on the products and services currently available in your area. Any reference to a Lenovo product, program, or service is not intended to state or imply that only that Lenovo product, program, or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program, or service that does not infringe any Lenovo intellectual property right may be used instead. However, it is the user’s responsibility to evaluate and verify the operation of any other product, program, or service. Lenovo may have patents or pending patent applications
covering subject matter described in this document. The furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents. You can send license inquiries, in writing, to:
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Attention: Lenovo Director of Licensing
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This information could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically made to the information herein; these changes will be incorporated in new editions of the publication. Lenovo may make improvements and/or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described in this publication at any time without notice.
The products described in this document are not intended for use in implantation or other life support applications where malfunction may result in injury or death to persons. The information contained in this document does not affect or change Lenovo product specifications or warranties. Nothing in this document shall operate as an express or implied license or indemnity under the intellectual property rights of Lenovo or third parties. All information contained in this document was obtained in specific environments and is presented as an illustration. The result obtained in other operating environments may vary. Lenovo may use or distribute any of the information you supply in any way it believes appropriate without incurring any obligation to you.
Any references in this publication to non-Lenovo Web sites are provided for convenience only and do not in any manner serve as an endorsement of those Web sites. The materials at those Web sites are not part of the materials for this Lenovo product, and use of those Web sites is at your own risk. Any performance data contained herein was
determined in a controlled environment. Therefore, the result obtained in other operating environments may vary significantly. Some measurements may have been made on development-level systems and there is no guarantee that these measurements will be the same on generally available systems. Furthermore, some measurements may
have been estimated through extrapolation. Actual results may vary. Users of this document should verify the applicable data for their specific environment.
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This document, TIPS0792, was created or updated on August 15, 2012.
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Lenovo and the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both. A current list of Lenovo trademarks is available on the Web at https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/legal/copytrade/.
The following terms are trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both:

• Lenovo®
• BladeCenter®
• Flex System
• ServeRAID
• ServerProven®
• System x®
• X5
• iDataPlex®

The following terms are trademarks of other companies:
Linux® is the trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
Microsoft®, Windows Server®, and Windows® are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
Enterprise Solid State Drives for IBM System x Servers (Withdrawn) (withdrawn product)

References

• Enterprise Business Server Solutions | IBM
• What is a Solid-State Drive? | IBM
• Drives > Lenovo Press
• Enterprise Solid State Drives for IBM System x Servers (Withdrawn) Product Guide (withdrawn product) > Lenovo Press
• Copyright and Trademark Information | Lenovo US | Lenovo US

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