SSD or 15k disks?

[KiraLexi]

I'm doing a new build (x86, sadly) and I'm considering whether to use 15k RPM hard disks, probably over SAS or fibre channel, or a decent solid-state drive. Since I have basically no experience with SSD's, which would be better? The system is going to be a J2EE development workstation, so will be doing fairly disk-intensive workstation and light server tasks. If I should go with SSD's, which ones are worthwhile in speed and reliability?

Thanks all! :)

[WinterRain]

I'm doing a new build (x86, sadly) and I'm considering whether to use 15k RPM hard disks, probably over SAS or fibre channel, or a decent solid-state drive. Since I have basically no experience with SSD's, which would be better? The system is going to be a J2EE development workstation, so will be doing fairly disk-intensive workstation and light server tasks. If I should go with SSD's, which ones are worthwhile in speed and reliability?

Thanks all! :)

If I had the money, I would probably have an SSD by now. But it's well known that intel has the best ssd's. But OCZ probably gives you better bang for the buck. Go to newegg.com and check reviews. My rule of thumb when buying online is at least 80% of the reviews need to be very positive. (4's and 5's)

[Shining Arcanine]

Practically all of the things computers do today are random in nature and SSDs (especially Intel's SSDs and SandForce based SSDs) excel at random reads and writes. SandForce SSDs are unproven at the moment and while they outperform Intel's SSDs, I recall reading some thing about them possibly getting into a state where their performance is degraded below that of Intel's SSDs.

I think you would be happiest with Intel's G2 SSDs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167024

Keep in mind that these are pricy, so you will likely want to use a conventional hard drive for long term storage and only keep the things that you need in the present on the Intel drives.

[andrewabc]

If looking for pure speed you need SSD.

If doing intensive writing to SSD (you say server/enterprise), then you may want an SLC SSD. They cost ~twice as much as MLC SSD.

As for MLC SSD there are 3 types.
Intel - fast read and random 4k read/write. Slow sequential writing.

Indinlinx (OCZ Vertex) - fast read, ok random 4k read/write, medium sequential writing. Mature firmware as it went through ~10 revisions in 1.5 years.

Sandforce (OCZ Vertex 2) - fast read, fastest 4k random read/write, fast sequential writing. New product a couple months old.

If you want to learn about SSD read "anantech SSD anothology" series.