To choose the best SSD, do your homework
When I buy baby food for my 8-month old, I have to be a responsible consumer. So I do my homework before I get to the grocery store. If you're after the best SSD performance, you must do the same thing.
I didn’t pick the baby food that I feed my little girl out of thin air; I researched and decided what I wanted, then I found brands that fit my requirements. Is it a little over the top? Probably. I don't have the "right" products -- I have the right ones for my family.
The same goes for solid-state drives. If you buy any old SSD, you still have an SSD. Storage will be faster and more reliable than if it were based on hard disk drives. But buying any SSD doesn’t guarantee the best SSD performance, or even the performance you need. You have to find the best SSD for your needs.
It's important to look at the whole picture when planning a storage strategy. There's more to solid-state drive performance metrics than read/write speeds. Wear and drive longevity also play a role in SSD performance. Throughput, latency and IOPS are important, but don't overlook the components that make up the drive's architecture, such as the NAND type, interface, controller and buffering capabilities.
Another important consideration is the SSD's capacity for handling write amplification. Ask how garbage collection, wear leveling and other processes are implemented in the SSDs you choose. And determine how much of the drive's available space -- if any -- must be allocated to support overprovisioning.
If you're considering SSDs for your organization, doing your research is important. Lucky for you, this three-part guide to getting the best SSD performance is a great place to start.
