In a world where saving money is a key concern for any business, the allure of SATA hard drives is hard to beat. They are relatively cheap and can be had with capacities that far exceed what many businesses will ever need. But, does that make them a good choice to have in your server? Not necessarily. SATA has limitations and SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) is a far better choice for servers.
For years the drive of choice for servers was the SCSI drive, and with good reason. More data could be moved to/from SCSI in a given amount of time. The reason was that SCSI supports higher bandwidths. Another way to look at this is by envisioning a bridge that needs to be crossed to enter a large city. If there is a large volume of traffic, a single lane bridge slows down entry of that traffic into the city. If the bridge has several lanes, the same amount of traffic can enter the city at a faster rate. This is the beauty of SCSI. SCSI is the multi-lane bridge, where SATA would be the single lane bridge. SATA does have its place, just not in your server. SATA has the edge in workstations. You can get a good deal of storage capacity for a very attractive price, thereby keeping workstation costs down. SATA also doesn’t do the self-testing that SAS drives do during start-up. This equates to faster boot times for SATA, which is key for impatient users. However, the performance of a server is far more attractive than fast boot times.
In a nutshell, the better choice for server hard drives is the SAS drive. The cost is higher, but when you look at cost vs. performance, SAS is a clear winner. And don’t think that enormous capacity you can get with SATA is a plus. In general, lower capacity drives will perform better because the read/write head doesn’t need to move as far to get to the necessary location on the drive platter(s). Recommendation? You can’t go wrong with SAS, but SATA will certainly leave you wanting for more.
When it comes to your GoldMine Server performance is key to the users’ experience. Your GoldMine server is probably processing more data and transacting more information across your network than any other server in your office. Investing in your GoldMine CRM server is great way to help your entire office be more productive.
