SSD vs HDD for VPS server?

TheCompWiz

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2016
Messages
130
Points
18
I'm thinking of buying an extra VPS server but wanted to know which type of hard disk would be best suited for a shared server environment for many websites with high traffic and requiring high CPU/memory. Does HDD still work? and using HDD might down price for my VPS plan, right?
 

LJSHost

Well-known member
Hosting Provider
Registered
Joined
Jul 5, 2016
Messages
1,031
Points
63
SSD is always better in terms of performance and reliability. HDD is a good choice if you need large amount of storage i.e 200GB + and will be much cheaper than an SSD powered VPS.
 

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
I'm thinking of buying an extra VPS server but wanted to know which type of hard disk would be best suited for a shared server environment for many websites with high traffic and requiring high CPU/memory. Does HDD still work? and using HDD might down price for my VPS plan, right?
For web hosting (WordPress, eCommerce, cPanel, Plesk), you should choose VPS with SSD, because it will be really slower with an HDD.
But if you need a lot of storage, you can look for a VPS with HDD, but only to store content.
 

timothykiko

Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 23, 2016
Messages
25
Points
1
timothykiko
An idea appeared in me when reading this reply, that's possible to have your websites running on SSD but for backup files, they will be stored in HDD.
That will help boost website's speed while we will have more storage for backup files and data.
 

eva2000

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Jan 14, 2017
Messages
173
Points
28
I always look for SSD or SSD cached backed storage. The one part of hosting folks overlook is backups. The speed of backup processes is also important. Fast you can backup the server data the better - hence SSD :)
 

Gecko

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Aug 25, 2016
Messages
364
Points
0
Based on what I have seen there is not a huge difference in price between traditional HDD VPS service and SSD VPS service so I wouldn't do it based on price unless you are find an extremely cheap price for the HDD and need a lot of space for your sites.

I personally would rather pay a little more and get the SSD but then again I am one who likes speed. :D
 

TheCompWiz

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2016
Messages
130
Points
18
I always look for SSD or SSD cached backed storage. The one part of hosting folks overlook is backups. The speed of backup processes is also important. Fast you can backup the server data the better - hence SSD :)
This is the first time I have ever heard of SSD cached, it is just used for backing up data?

For web hosting (WordPress, eCommerce, cPanel, Plesk), you should choose VPS with SSD, because it will be really slower with an HDD.
But if you need a lot of storage, you can look for a VPS with HDD, but only to store content.
It is not clear why some web hosts are still offering hosting plans with HDD while it is being used as a backup disk.
 

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
VirtuBox
Yes, basically if you need a VPS to host your websites, choose a VPS with SSD. Several Hosting Providers are still using HDD, and it's why shared hosting is slow. Because if you use a dedicated server with HDD for a single blog, it will not be a problem, but with VPS, disks are shared between all virtual servers, and HDD have very bad IOPs for small files (php files for example)
 

eva2000

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Jan 14, 2017
Messages
173
Points
28
This is the first time I have ever heard of SSD cached, it is just used for backing up data?
it's basically using SATA/SAS disks for storage via hardware raid controller with a read and maybe write cache on fast SSD disk. LSI MegaRaid CacheCade is one such tech https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/MegaRAID_CacheCade_SSD_Cache as is Adaptec MaxCache

  • One or more SSDs will be connected to the RAID controller in addition to the normal hard disks, when using CacheCade.
  • Thereby, the conventional hard disks operate completely normally in the RAID array (such as, four hard disks in a RAID 5 array).
  • Data that is often read from the RAID array is automatically stored on the SSDs ("working data set").
  • Data areas that are often read can therefore be read directly from the SSD, which improves read performance.
  • The CacheCade content will remain on the SSDs even during a re-boot.
 

HostXNow

Well-known member
Hosting Provider
Registered
Joined
Nov 26, 2014
Messages
374
Points
28
I don't use SATA for anything anymore. Now I use SSD for sites and SAS for backups.
 

hfav

Active member
Registered
Hosting Provider
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
83
Points
8
Honestly speaking, you don't need SSD. If you pick right provider, HDD will be able to solve your issue. We have HP's server with 1 GB array cache and we get around 532 MB/s read/write in our VPS
 

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
Agreed, I believe a sort of combination between HDD + SSD caching should be really nice for the hosting business. :)
OVH use this combination on their VPS Cloud with Ceph storage (1.6TB of NVMe with 6x600GB SAS), and performances are not really good. That's why they also offer VPS with SSD.

honestly speaking, you don't need ssd. If you pick right provider, hdd will be able to solve your issue. We have hp's server with 1 gb array cache and we get around 532 mb/s read/write in our vps
You can have good transfer rates with a HDD, but latency is not good, and it can be really slow with several VPS on the same disks.
 

hfav

Active member
Registered
Hosting Provider
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
83
Points
8
Guys,

I think we are going to wrong direction.

You can have good transfer rates with a HDD, but latency is not good, and it can be really slow with several VPS on the same disks.
sequential disk speeds is only one factor, cached disks don't do as well as pure ssd for random disk i/o patterns i.e. database usage.
I'm not saying HDD is better than SSD. Everyone knows SSD is better.

We are just giving suggestion to TheCompWiz, so that he can get betting understanding and make right decision.

I'm thinking of buying an extra VPS server but wanted to know which type of hard disk would be best suited for a shared server environment for many websites with high traffic and requiring high CPU/memory. Does HDD still work? and using HDD might down price for my VPS plan, right?
Does TheCompWiz really need SSD?
Few things: Keeping budget in mind

- Did you check your current disk IOPS?
- Did you check current bandwidth utilization?
- Do you have very large Database? Normally you can't have a 500GB database in a regular VPS?
- Are you sharing large files? Normally you can't share too many large files from you VPS. Because of storage limit and bandwidth limit.


Above questions will help you to determine what you need.
 

gagah

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Jan 21, 2017
Messages
86
Points
0
Like others have said, it depends. Especially if you're budget constrained, HDD will still be fine. Just use object caching like Redis, memcached or other solutions to reduce database IOPS if your site is database-heavy (which most sites are these days) :D If you're reselling the resources though, avoid HDD as much as you can.
 

TheCompWiz

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2016
Messages
130
Points
18
Does TheCompWiz really need SSD?
Few things: Keeping budget in mind

- Did you check your current disk IOPS?
- Did you check current bandwidth utilization?
- Do you have very large Database? Normally you can't have a 500GB database in a regular VPS?
- Are you sharing large files? Normally you can't share too many large files from you VPS. Because of storage limit and bandwidth limit.


Above questions will help you to determine what you need.
hmm..I always like choosing SSD but as asked, HDD may be a good choice to cut cost if I don't need the speed.

- Did you check your current disk IOPS?
What is IOPS?

- Did you check current bandwidth utilization?
What does it help? and check for what?

- Do you have very large Database? Normally you can't have a 500GB database in a regular VPS?
No I don't have any large database like that.

- Are you sharing large files? Normally you can't share too many large files from you VPS. Because of storage limit and bandwidth limit.
No I don't share large files but is this related to SSD or HDD?
I don't understand what you are speaking to.
 

hfav

Active member
Registered
Hosting Provider
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
83
Points
8

HostYourNet-DR

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Jan 13, 2017
Messages
139
Points
18
SSD for small website
HDD for large data websites and day.
 

HostYourNet-DR

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Jan 13, 2017
Messages
139
Points
18
Well if you think about it SSD are built for fast transfer and have limited IOP space it can do etc.
If your a hosting company your not going to give an account to some that wants to host.
It would cost them around £70+ for that kinda of space on an SSD.
Where as on a HDD space per GB is a lot lower than SSD per GB so large files are better on HDD then SSD to keep the drive clean and fresh for SSD speeds.

Do that make sence?
 

VictorVictories

Well-known member
Registered
Hosting Provider
Joined
Feb 7, 2017
Messages
114
Points
0
When one selects VPS server for storage, there may be a dilemma whether to choose SSD or HDD storage. The wisdom of the webmaster must prevail here, and webmaster must decide whether more storage space is required or performance. If one needs less pricing and more storage cost, then HDD go for HDD. If one want superfast performance and pricing is not a big factor, then SSD is a perfect solution.
 

Medhahosting

Member
Hosting Provider
Registered
Joined
Feb 28, 2017
Messages
54
Points
8
You are willing to pay for faster performance
Don't mind limited storage capacity or can work around that
And again I have to mention that SSD data recovery is far more complicated and harder than HDD's.
 

BlueLeaf

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Messages
160
Points
18
SSD is definitely the way to go. It's newer technology, it's much faster, and it was a good choice for us. We switched to SSD and never looked back. Nowadays when you have so much competition, and all competitors' websites are super fast, and users are spoiled by fast sites and fast services, and first time visitors can get easily annoyed by a slow moving site, you definitely have to go with the market by having a super fast VPS server. That impacts the speed of your websites too, so think twice before getting an HDD nowadays.
 

RufusBrewer

Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 18, 2013
Messages
19
Points
0
I don't use SATA for anything anymore. Now I use SSD for sites and SAS for backups.
What is SAS?

Honestly speaking, you don't need SSD. If you pick right provider, HDD will be able to solve your issue. We have HP's server with 1 GB array cache and we get around 532 MB/s read/write in our VPS
Some people said HDD is really bad for website loading. I believe that is true and always to with SSD.
 
Older Threads
Replies
4
Views
7,997
Replies
7
Views
5,509
Replies
17
Views
4,436
Newer Threads
Replies
13
Views
14,931
Replies
6
Views
3,904
Replies
23
Views
25,778
Recommended Threads
Replies
3
Views
2,480
Replies
14
Views
5,077
Replies
7
Views
2,695
Replies
17
Views
10,180

Latest Hosting OffersNew Reviews

Sponsors

Tag Cloud

You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

Top