Scheduled Optimization on Heavily Used Data Drive

[idata]

We're testing an x-25v 40gb on a data ingester running xp-pro receiving a feed at around 10Mbps. Total drive use is consistent at around 10GB with thousands of small files updating every hour. So far the drive has performed much better than the striped raids we've been using. I've only optimized the drive twice in a week & it's still doing a better job on scheduled output. I would really like to schedule the optimization to run once every few days, but I don't want to shutdown the service & interrupt the feed. I've seen the warning that only 1GB will be available for use during optimization, & I don't believe the system would exceed that in the brief period required for optimization (though the service was shutdown while optimizing).

Would this be worth trying on a non-os drive? What are the potential hazards?

Also, how urgent should our move to the 320 series be? We recieved 3 last Friday after noting the performance on this test unit and contending with speed/fragmentation issues on other ingesters running striped raid. I'm thinking perhaps we should swap out the value series on the test box prior to putting it into production.

[idata]

Your application is writing 10GB an hour for nearly 24/7 for weeks at a time?

If this is the case, I would highly suggest you look at SLC SSD due to the number of P/E cycles.

The 320 provides much better sequential writes and improve random writes as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/359?vs=148 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/359?vs=148

[idata]

The feed runs at just over 10 megabits per second & the service is set to highly filter the data per ingester specialization. It's nowhere near 10GB per hour, but back to the original question. Can the optimization scheduler be set to run safely without shutting the ingest service down?

[idata]

10Mbps... 24/7? Let's assume 0.25-1.0MB/s with your filter.... that would be like 20-85GB per day. That is quite a lot of writes. I would recommend you get a SLC drive or increase overprovisioning.

"Safely" is a relative term.... Yes, you can run the SSD Optimizer while the drive in use. The risk is if there is a large burst of writes while the optimizer is running.

Have you noticed any performance degradation from not running the Optimizer as often? There is no <5min downtime during the week to schedule the process?

[idata]

Sorry for the confusion. Total drive space used is only 10GB of the 40GB available.

As for degradation, the only thing I've noticed is a slight delay on output of two high res images that output every half hour. It looks like a delay of 1 minute after 3 days of running 24/7. Immediately after optimization, scheduled output is right on the scheduled time.

The problem with downtime is data from the stream gets missed while the service is off & there is no re-capturing it, not to mention the issues with automating the service shutdown. I'd really like to automate the whole process as I'm the only one handling it & I've got over 50 other machines to maintain along with new production, & development. Sometimes the service takes longer to shutdown, & I'd hate to fire off optimization prematurely.

I'll probably have to script something in the scheduler software we use. Can the optimizer be fired from the command line?