MySpace replaces disks with flash
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Posted in Enterprise, 14th October 2009 08:47 GMT
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Social networking site MySpace has replaced traditional server/direct-attach disk combos with flash memory cached servers to save space, energy, cooling and cost.
MySpace originally used multiple racks of 2U rackmount servers, with ten to twelve directly-attached 15,000rpm hard drives. They've been ripped-and-replaced with fewer racks holding 1U servers fitted with Fusion-io's ioDrive flash memory accelerator cards.
The ioDrives use less than 1 per cent of the electricity needed by the replaced hard drives. MySpace now uses less floor space for its servers, less electricity to power and cool them, and expects them to be more reliable as they'll no longer suffer HDD failures. It makes MySpace a greener data centre operator.
Richard Buckingham, technical operations VP for MySpace, said: “In the last 20 years, disk storage hasn’t kept pace with other innovations in IT, and right now we’re on the cusp of a dramatic change with flash technologies."
He added that MySpace had looked at a number of alternative flash configurations, including RAID'ed ones, before settling on the ioDrives ®
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