Re: Testing Sandforce SSD

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 3:20 AM, Yeb Havinga <yebhavinga(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> Probably like many other's I've wondered why no SSD manufacturer puts a
> small BBU on a SSD drive. Triggered by Greg Smith's mail
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2010-02/msg00291.php here,
> and also anandtech's review at http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899/1 (see
> page 6 for pictures of the capacitor) I ordered a SandForce drive and this
> week it finally arrived.
>
> And now I have to test it and was wondering about some things like
>
> * How to test for power failure?

I test like this: write a small program that sends a endless series of
inserts like this:
*) on the server:
create table foo (id serial);
*) from the client:
insert into foo default values returning id;
on the client side print the inserted value to the terminal after the
query is reported as complete to the client.

Run the program, wait a bit, then pull the plug on the server. The
database should recover clean and the last reported insert on the
client should be there when it restarts. Try restarting immediately a
few times then if that works try it and let it simmer overnight. If
it makes it at least 24-48 hours that's a very promising sign.

merlin