Total Cost of Solid State Storage Ownership

When comparing Solid State Storage (SSS) devices with Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), many people stop after reviewing the initial acquisition cost of both storage media and conclude that SSS devices are still too expensive to be seriously considered. However, when comparing storage alternatives, acquisition cost is just one of the many parameters that need to be considered. A better tool for comparison is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), where factors such as performance, power consumption, reliability, maintenance, repair, and many other factors are taken into account. This white paper reviews the many aspects of TCO that should be considered when choosing a storage solution. It will show a TCO calculation for a random write intensive Microsoft Exchange email application, designed for 2,000 heavy Blackberry users. The calculation will compare the cost between the implementation of an SSS-based system and an HDD-based system. The TCO results indicate that SSS is a better choice than HDD for this application.