SQL equals what?

Once upon a time I coined a phrase “SQL = SAS”. Our marketing department dismissed it as not having enough words in it to keep them all employed so it was relegated to a printout on my wall of ideas.

However … I think I may now have to agree with our marketing department (damn that hurts me to say) … SAS is under threat from SSD (SLC specifically). Following is a link to an excellent article from Tom’s Hardware - written by a journo with skills that make me look like a clay tablet chiseler.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/x25-e-ssd-performance,2365.html

Now the bent of that article is speed in Mb/s (Megabytes per second to clarify this always contentious abbreviation). Ironically that’s not what database is measured or mentioned in (iops are the go with database because of the randomness of the data), in any case over 2000Mb/s is damned fast, and the streaming video lads will be drooling as they read. Their only real difficulty in life is the ridiculous cost of putting together something large enough for their needs.

Database (and here I’m talking SQL) on the other hand doesn’t need the space requirements of video and I’ve always found SQL system builders will go to just about any length (and cost) to improve the speed of their systems.

So take a look at the attached article, specifically on page 7 (database) and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The speed for database is amazing. Would you do this for a fileserver? If you have more money than sense, possibly, but I seriously doubt it. Would you do it for video? Possibly if your budget is massive and your requirements extreme. Would you do it for database? You bet there are people out there who after reading this article will be racing out to purchase some seriously fast solid state drives.

While on this point, go and read my previous blogs about making sure that when you purchase a solid state drive you (a) know what you are purchasing and (b) get the type of drive that suits your needs. Remember there are a lot of variations out there now in the drive market, and and not all apples are in fact apples.

For a bit of fun read some of the comments on Tom’s site (at the bottom of each page). Most people are concerned with how fast this extreme array will boot windows and load applications. Now I’m concerned about that too, but just can’t see myself putting together such a system at home or on a workstation!

Ciao
Neil