Why use high-temperature-rated M.2 SATA SSDs in datacenters
June 30, 2015
Temperatures inside datacenters are on the rise in an effort to save money. Most datacenters operate between 68 ºF and 72 ºF, but raising the temper...
Temperatures inside datacenters are on the rise in an effort to save money. Most datacenters operate between 68 ºF and 72 ºF, but raising the temperature can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy costs. How high should you set the temperature in your datacenter? The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends an inlet temperature range of 68 ºF to 77 ºF, but is now exploring expanding that range.
With energy costs continuing to increase, using traditional spindles is costly. As we’ve seen with tablets in the portable device market, new high-temperature-rated SSDs use only 5 percent of the power required by small disk drives. However, higher temperatures in servers lead to shorter hardware lifecycles, so many new datacenter-class motherboards are now turning to removable M.2 SATA modules. These wide temperature modules can be rated from -40 ºC to +85 ºC, and are available in 4 GB to 512 GB capacities with fast booting processes. They can also include features such as:
· 1 Gbps, 3 Gbps, and 6 Gbps interfaces
· NGFF connector
· ATAPI-8 command protocol
· Options for DEVSLP
· SMART disk monitoring
· 1500G shock ratings
With this transition, enterprise customers are also coming to the realization that not all SSDs are created equal. Where single-level cell (SLC) flash offers high endurance and faster write access times, multi-level cell (MLC) technology offers twice the density at a more cost effective price point. Both SLC and MLC capacities are available ranging from 16 MB to 1.6 TB, presenting a design tradeoff to network engineers. When selecting the right technology for extended temperature range server deployments, it’s important to partner with a storage provider that has a history of working in harsh environments.
