Which SSD do I get?

Discussion in 'Bukkit Discussion' started by LEOcab, Nov 18, 2011.

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  1. Offline

    LEOcab

    Hello Bukkit! :D

    I finally got $100 in donations. YAY!

    My main bottleneck at this point is the bandwidth (4 megabits upstream), but I don't have fiber optics in my area so I'll settle for the next best upgrade: a solid state disk. I browsed TigerDirect and found some cheap ones for $60-$80 but I don't know anything about buying SSDs. What do I need to look for specifically for a Minecraft server? I'll put everything on the SSD except the SVN repository for map backups.

    One bonus question that's not really Minecraft related: what filesystem should I choose (I'll do a clean install of Slackware) and should I modify the kernel in any way to optimize SSD access?

    Thanks in advance! :)
     
  2. Offline

    XtenD

    mlc sdd умирают гораздо быстрей чем slc (Хотя второй вариант стоит напорядок больше)
    Не бери ssd марки ocz, они нестабильные.
    Что касается оси, то слаквар вполне подойдёт
    з.ы заюзал сразу русский, увидел вашу подпись :D
     
  3. Offline

    TnT

    If bandwidth is your bottleneck, how would getting an SSD help you?

    I know a lot of people love SSD's. I, personally, think a ramdisk is a better setup, so I'd spend the money on more ram (or a dedicated server/vps).

    As for which SSD's to get, depends if you can support Sata III or not.
     
  4. Offline

    LEOcab

    Я нет говорю по-русский; I just really love Eduard Khil. Haha. :p

    1) What's an SLC?
    2) I've had two bad experiences with OCZ in the past (flashdrives) so I'll be skipping them. :D

    Thanks!
     
  5. Offline

    ZachBora

    Hi LEOcab, I don't see at ALL how could an SSD fix your bandwidth problem.
    SSD = storage
    bandwidth = tunnel size to pass bytes from one machine to another
    Think of it this way (I don't have the actual numbers)
    (HDD giving 100mb/s) -> (bandwidth @4mb/s)
    (SSD giving 600mb/s) -> (bandwidth @4mb/s)
    No matter what you do, the 4mb will be a bottleneck.
    Now about your SSD. I suggest you look up this thing called "ramdisk", I heard it's even better than SSD and some server hosts offer it. I've never tried it myself so I couldn't help with that.
    TnT was faster than me...
     
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  6. Offline

    LEOcab

    It wouldn't. That's why I said next best upgrade. :D

    I had a ramdisk in the past, but then my worlds got too big. I guess I could double my RAM to 8GB but I'd have the buy the whole eight gigs since all the RAM slots are already filled. I guess I subconsciously discarded this option because I'm stingy, but it definitely sounds better than an SSD. :)

    But, assuming we stick to the SSD idea: no, my motherboard only supports SATA II.
     
  7. Offline

    XtenD

    Buy ram, dont buy ssd...
     
  8. Offline

    LEOcab

    LOL. I understand the difference between storage and bandwidth. I said 'next best upgrade' because I can't do anything about the bandwidth, short of moving to a different state that has FiOS. :D
     
  9. Offline

    ZachBora

    woah you got 4gb only? I'd suggest getting 8+. I have 16gb on my computer.
     
  10. Offline

    LEOcab

    I only have two RAM slots, haha. For 16GB I'd have to get two 8GB sticks which are super expensive. Even two 4GB sticks is out of my price range. I guess I'll just skip the SSD, wait for more donations and then get a 8GB pack.

    Thanks everyone! You've all been very helpful! :D
     
  11. Offline

    ZachBora

    Might be cheaper to get new mobo? idk :p
     
  12. Offline

    mindless728

    depends on the mobo and cpu, if 8GB(2x4GB) is too expensive it is probably DDR2 which means at least new mobo/ram and more than likely new cpu as well
     
  13. Offline

    SwearWord

    Please keep it in English
     
  14. Offline

    Zeeber

    I'm personally using an OCZ Vertex Limited Edition (LE) which was the first of the vertex SSD line. I've been using it for over a year without any problems. Most of the recent issues with the sandforce controllers has been fixed in firmware updates, but most people are too lazy or don't know how to update the firmware which is why they have problems.

    People will always recommend or tell you to stay away from certain brands, so always do your own research and decide yourself. While I haven't had any issues with mine, doesn't mean that you wont. YMMV

    If you can handle SATA3 (6GB/s) check out theses:
    OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS edition
    Crucial M4
    Corsair Force Series
    Intel 510 series

    Check out reviews and see what you want it for. I would not recommend you use it for a server drive though since minecraft writes to the drive like a crazed animal, which will wear out the SSD quickly. Even with wear leveling and other technologies, with your bandwidth in mind you would be wasting the extra speed and just wearing out your drive faster. Stick with either a RAM disk or a good old harddrive.

    My setup is the SSD as my OS/boot drive with select apps and a 1TB 7200 RPM HDD as my data/games/server drive. Also, I'm using Windows 7
     
  15. Offline

    xphoenixxx

    How many concurrent players you aiming for?
    Our happy place is about 8-9 players at the moment before lag becomes painful.
    I have a bandwidth issue too, i found if you just lower your server config files visual range setting by 1 or 2, (to 8 or 7) you cant really notice it visually in game, but what it does is sends up to 70-100 chunks less per second per player, resulting in anything up to 2/5 less bandwidth being required per player. Of course there IS visual impact, but if you are hitting a wall bandwidth wise the lag would have been preventing/delaying the furthest range chunks from fully downloading and rendering anyway. So visually it looks the same as when you have a lot of players online, only suddenly a bunch of the lag just isn't there anymore.

    Also-
    Our server is only running a handful of gig of ram, but our minecraft daemon never goes over 1100mb ram most of the time, for us as far as memory went setting our java launcher to give the server an extra 200 or so meg ram (1280ish) compared to what the "make your own server" tutorials say and setting the java process to realtime priority also nailed a little bit of the lag/cant keep up errors. (Since your planning on going linux - look up the man on the "nice" command i think.) Not much, but there was noticably less "rubber banding" and "block ping pong" after the settings were tweaked.

    LOL i also killed off my explorer and antivirus processes so less crap was spinning in the background - but ours is purely a dedicated MC pc so that didnt cause issues.

    Putting aside bandwidth - back to raw grunt - If you want to go the budget option I would suggest the ramdisk too, put that money towards a decent UPS so you can save out your worlds if it detects a power issue, and setup your backup batch script to copy it out to the physical disk regularly. From memory ram disks in linux are pretty straightforward to setup. You just need a good bash script to drag your world file across in time for the server launcher to load it.

    Another alternative to SSD or ram disk is install a flash card reader/converter (eg flash to IDE or flash to SATA or USB2 or USB3) and get one of the new super high speed SD cards - you only need 8 gig or less for most minecraft server maps, and its a lot cheaper than a $300 SSD that will break in 6 months because you forgot 1 firmware update. If you want to live dangerously, for the extreme budget option you could also use a compressed filesystem to get more out of your 8 gig- what you gain in overhead from having to compress/decompress on the fly you offset by having smaller read/write operations. Downside is increased chance of data curruption on crashes - so dont forget the UPS.

    Another alternative again is one of those DDR2 RAM pci cards, the ones you insert in a PCI slot, that need their own battery, and you install 8 DDR modules into, and it pretends to be a SATA hard disk. That saves a lot of messing around, but would still be a good idea to have backing up to a real disk regularly. That gives you a supercharged server. Friends of mine run windows off them, they boot in seconds. Downside here is similar price scale to SSD.

    BTW DDR3 ram was at all time low prices when i checked this month, go hunting if prices your way suck.

     
  16. Offline

    VoidingNixx

    SSD yay! Keep just the basics you need, on the drive. Keep mainly read files on the drive, and keep off as many things which need to constantly perform writes to the drive. They tend to slow down a lil' over time, with constant writes to 'em.

    I'd recommend a Mushkin. Great lil' company, high quality components, and very good customer support.
     
  17. Offline

    deltahat

    Make sure the SSD supports the Trim function. Trim will help decrease performance degredation due to lots of writes.

    If bandwidth is an issue, you may want to look at moving your server to a co-location facility. They will have enough bandwidth. Or, invest in a business class Internet connection.
     
  18. Offline

    LEOcab

    @xphoenixxx : I know about the view-distance thing. The problem is it messes up the way mobs spawn since they don't get deleted on chunk deloads. This may have been fixed in 1.0.0, and if it has I will certainly do that. :D

    I'll look into the IDE cards you're talking about. That seems very interesting!

    I called a co-location place once and I hung up when the lady said the price - $1,000 a month. :eek:
    I'm sure this isn't the same kind of co-location that's often talked about in Minecraft servers because there can't be that many rich people here. Either way I don't think I could live away from my little baby... :rolleyes:
     
  19. Offline

    mindless728

    @LEOcab for colocation cold take a look here BurstNET

    had a friend of mine that was looking into this and i found burstnet
     
  20. Offline

    xphoenixxx

    Try one of the fixlag plugins when 1.0.0 builds settle down for the mobs, they have a few mob/entity tweaks there which might solve your deload problem. I don't use fixlag myself, my server users are spread out far enough the de-spawn on no nearby players event appears to clean them up pretty quick.

    IDE cards These work nicely, - i run an early generation compact flash to IDE "bridge" for lack of a better word on my hotspot router in my shop. CF isn't as fast as the super-SD cards, but theres no moving parts and my router recovers from a power failure in about 10 seconds. Being an IDE bridge it pretty much eliminated 100% of any compatability issues. It just worked, and cause the slot hangs out the back, i can just have a spare CF card with a ghost of the other. If a card dies on me, swap them and hit reset button and im back in business. With minecraft you could run two of these running backups to the second, and if your map crashed swap card 1 with 2 and hit reset for a similar result I expect. Then card 2 would backup to card one and fix itself.. rinse repeat.

    For you tho, I would suggest go with the USB2/USB3 SD card drives, you should get more speed out of them than a dusty old IDE one. Tho the ide ones cant be beaten for compatability and are probably under $10 on ebay, and for under $70 for a SuperSD, or under $40 for a CF card its the extreme of budget option there :eek:) It all depends how good the linux support of your chosen is for USB based card readers.

    Forget co-hosting unless you have a mate in a ISP, theres a few places doing shared minecraft hosting, they range from $20 to $50 a month for each 5-10 player slots.. you just need to be willing to use a different port number; i had a link for one the other day, my associate uses them damned if i can find it now tho.. sorry.

    Probably a few people here can list 20 different places doing it.. anyone?
     
  21. Offline

    Sleaker

    @LEOcab - because of How Minecraft continually writes to the HD it's not recommended to get an SSD unless you really want to throw money away or have enough to get a high-end SSD. Any flash memory will not work well with MC because of the limited life based on number of writes, which MC does a lot of.
     
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