Switch Your Databases To Flash Storage

For example, to be able to get a Linode at only a fraction more of the cost (say, a 10% premium) with the disk being SSD (and obviously reduced capacity compared to HDD).

I have seen the current offerings but found them to either be too costly (AWS, only one of the the largest instances), or too onerous (ssdnodes.com whose base products aren't aligned with the costs elsewhere, and to move all of your hosts to be near your SSD powered database is a big task when I only seek a little task).

I was even considering co-locating as the most cost-effective way to get SSDs when providers still massively overprice them. It all feels a bit like the RAM scam a decade ago when they'd charge you near the cost of the RAM every 2 months. Again though... co-location fell into the onerous class of actions.

Right now, pragmatically I stay with HDD and Linode.

But Linode should look at my $500 per month account and be well aware that as soon as I see a competitor offer SSD nodes at a cost-competitive point that offsets the burden to move... I'll be gone.

Unlike magnetic disks, SSDs have a tendency to fail at a really predictable rate. So predictably that if you've got two drives of the same model, put them into commission at the same time, and subject them to the same usage patterns, they will probably fail at about the same time. That's a real problem if you're using SSDs in a RAID array, since RAID's increased reliability relies on the assumption that it's very unlikely for two drives to fail at about the same time.

With an SSD, though, once one drive goes there's a decent (perhaps small, but far from negligible) chance that a second drive will go out before you've had a chance to replace the first one. Which makes things complicated, but is much better than the similarly likely scenario that a second SSD fails shortly after you replace the first one. Because then it's possibly happening during the rebuild, and if that happens then it really will bring down the whole RAID array.

That said, if you're careful then that predictability should be a good thing. A good SSD will keep track of wear for you. So all you've got to do is monitor the status of the drives, and replace them before they get too close to their rated lifespan. If you add that extra step you're probably actually improving your RAID's reliability. But if you treat your RAID as if SSDs are just fast HDDs, you're asking for trouble.

(Their management change a couple years ago, made a bunch of changes that pissed me off, so I left and moved to Linode).

EDIT: vps.net charges $25/month for 1GB of storage on FusionIO drives, and they sell in 2GB increments. 2GB is $50/month. 36GB is $900/month