Re: questions about SSDs and IBM i

Most of the small machines we deal with only have two or four of the NVMe devices since they are so big, so we simply mirror them.

The real answer to your question is IBM’s favorite: it depends.

In a write heavy environment, I would use mirroring for the reasons you cite. In a ready heavy environment, it does not matter so default to mirroring.

Now on a FLASH San box, that’s another discussion but I am believing that you mean internal storage.
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

On Jul 7, 2025, at 11:03 AM, Rob Berendt <robertowenberendt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Do they still charge separate maintenance for SSD's on those models? I
seem to remember it was a bit salty. And we did go through a few.
We always used RAID (5, I believe).

On Mon, Jul 7, 2025 at 11:55 AM Mark Waterbury <
mark.s.waterbury@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi, All,

Modern Power9 / Power10 machines come with NVMe now, but I am working with
a few folks who have older (P7, P8) equipment who may decide to "upgrade"
from spinning disks to SSDs.

Do you think it is better to use mirrored pairs, versus RAID? I have
heard and read opinions that RAID-5 or RAID-6 may "ruin" the "wear
leveling" of SSDs. Is that just rumor or speculation?

Or, perhaps just use mirrored pairs with SSDs?

Any opinions or advice in this regard?

Thanks in advance,

Mark S. Waterbury
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