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This is a beginner's question:

We have a powerful computing server for roughly 10 users which will be increasingly used for data processing. In the past the main bottleneck was I/O.

I was wondering if it is possible to have some kind of device to plug in a larger number of SSD drives (i.e. one for each user and additional ones for large datasets) and still enjoy the maximum read/write speeds for each disk separately. Optimally, the drives could be plugged in at runtime without reboot.

  • Is this possible?
  • How could this be achieved (i.e. through which kinds of connectors)?
  • Is it done in practice?
  • What are the requirements for the server?
Radio Controlled
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I was wondering if it is possible to have some kind of device to plug in a larger number of SSD drives

Given that I have servers with up to nearly 80 (!) drive slots, this is not "a device", it is "buy hardware not for low end end user use". And with SAS expander cases you can add hundreds of SAS slots into one lane.

Head over to SuperMicro and start doing some baseline research. They offer a lot of different computer cases.

TomTom
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  • Thanks for the pointers. So the first question to the IT department would be how many drive slots are there? I guess according to a page on *SAS Expanders*, one has to take into account: "Most external port cards have two ports and can support only 8 drives without an expander." – Radio Controlled Nov 21 '19 at 10:53
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    No. SAS adapters can form a network bus and you can chain them for 200+ drives on one cable. And a SAS cable has 4x the SATA bandwidth. There are similar NVME expanders availalbe. Seems your IT department is run by people that should not be in IT and lack knowledge of modern IT. Not that rare. – TomTom Nov 21 '19 at 10:55
  • Yep. It's not like it's my job to research this ;) – Radio Controlled Nov 21 '19 at 10:58
  • Now, if SAS has 4x SATA bandwith, what's the point in chaining 200 drives on one cable? – SYN Nov 21 '19 at 12:18
  • The fact that unless you use SSD (and then even 4x SATA bandwidth is extremely pathetic) HDD under norma lserver side load do not even come close to saturate a single SAS endpoint even if you have dozens of hard discs. – TomTom Nov 21 '19 at 12:32