GBASE's Exploration and Practice with Flash Storage for Core Data

On June 15, GBASE attended the DCTC2016 Data Center Technology Conference and appeared as a DCTC2016 All-Flash Data Center partner.

Dr. Wu Xin, Senior Vice President and CTO of GBASE, shared insights on applying flash storage to core data workloads during the conference:

GBase 8a in TPC-H benchmark tests, SSD delivers 1.55x overall performance improvement, with single-query gains up to 6x; complex SQL is CPU-intensive, while columnar storage and smart indexes significantly reduce IO.

GBase 8t in OLTP scenarios using Flash cards, Flash cards warm up quickly (5s vs 275s), and checkpoint performance degradation is much lower.

GBase 8m in-memory database achieves up to 1.7x faster high-speed data file loading.

Dr. Wu Xin, Senior Vice President and CTO of GBASE

Advantages and Disadvantages of Three Flash Storage Media

SAS RAID

Advantages: Large capacity / High sequential read/write performance / Stability / Compatibility / High availability with RAID

Disadvantage: Low IOPS

SSD RAID

Advantages: High IOPS / High sequential read/write performance / Compatibility / High availability with RAID

Disadvantages: Performance limited by RAID controller / Limited write endurance

Flash Card

Advantages: High IOPS

Disadvantages: Capacity / Performance with sub-4K pages / Misaligned read/write performance / Compatibility / Limited write endurance / Cost-effectiveness / High availability

GBase SDS storage delivers a high-performance, highly available, and scalable shared storage solution based on Flash cards.

Through testing and practice with GBase 8a, GBase 8t, and GBase 8m, the advantages and disadvantages of three flash storage media—SAS RAID, SSD RAID, and Flash cards—have been identified.

Dr. Wu noted that replacing SAS RAID with SSD RAID yields significant performance gains with low risk; Flash cards represent the future, as demonstrated by international OLTP benchmarks where 216 Flash cards replaced 7,000 disks and doubled performance.

Flash technology continues to advance faster than Moore’s Law, driving transformation in data center technology. As a database vendor, GBASE remains committed to innovation, stays aligned with new technologies, actively engages in comprehensive ecosystem partnerships, and contributes to advancing data center development.