This IBM® Redpaper™ publication describes the configuration guidelines for using Read Intensive Flash Drives available from IBM with the IBM Spectrum Virtualize™ and IBM Storwize® family systems.
The Read Intensive (RI) solid state drives (SSDs) that are available on Storwize V7000 Gen2, Storwize V5000 Gen2, and IBM SAN Volume Controller 2145-DH8/24F are one Drive Write Per Day (DWPD) Read Intensive drives.
To deploy Read Intensive SSDs, your system must have Storwize code levels 7.6.1.4 or 7.7.0 installed.
RI SSDs are available to purchase as an add-on to an existing Storwize system, or they can be bought with a new system that contains RI SSDs. Due to the Read Intensive nature of these drives, they must be treated differently from regular or 10 DWPD SSD drives. We advise that the user follow the configuration guidelines that are detailed in the following document to be able to make the best use of RI SSDs.
Introduction
Drive identification
RAID considerations
Read Intensive SSD considerations
System resource use impact on endurance