Is it possible to build a RAID1 of two SSDs for MS SQL DB on an LSI SAS9211-4i controller?

Question

RAID

Good afternoon!
There is an old server with MS SQL 2008 databases, 60-90 GB (on average), MS Windowd Server 2008R2 OS.
Database disks are spinning on LSI Logic SAS controller 9211-4i , RAID1 2xHDD 10 000rpm 900GB.
1C databases are read and written around the clock, all sorts of indexes, exchanges between versions, etc.
The task to lift volume of an array, the place comes to an end.
The supplier suggested that we put 2 SSD disks (40 thousand rubles for a 1.99 TB disk), server ones. He says reliable, and very productive compared to current HDDs. What can you say about the reliability of this solution?
There are big doubts about the controller, it is quite old, and cannot know about SSD in principle. And SSDs have such a thing as TRIM.
To the OS, the array looks like an LSI Logical Volume SCSI Disk Device.
Therefore, I'm just leaning towards replacing with larger HDD disks.

Answer 1

SSDs are quite reliable, it’s another thing to look at the characteristics offered, for me personally there is either Intel or everyone else, the 37th series claims more than 8 PB of overwriting, this is a lot, and is considered a reliable solution by integrators.
https://ark.intel.com/ru/products/84238/Intel-SSD-...
What they offer you obviously does not have such characteristics.
According to the controller, if you update the firmware, then the ssd drives will start up, it's another matter that there is no cache there, the speed will definitely drop. As for whether the TRiM controller supports anything, I can’t say anything yet, google it in this direction.

Answer 2

I think that it is possible to assemble, but how it will work is the question.
Firstly, I note that we ourselves love to drive LSI controllers , but regarding TRIM support, you should look at this page:
https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase/121...
In addition, the question is also in whether your controller is "too simple" to handle SSDs in general.
Secondly, I will also add about the cache:
Without it, there may be unexpected drawdowns in speed. The surprise can be both in the scale of drawdowns and in their asymmetry (read/write).
In general, for SSDs, it is recommended to disable the controller cache, but then you need to enable caching on the disks themselves. If the SSDs offered to you are server ones, then they should have cache protection in case of power outages, if not, then taking into account the specifics of your task, the work becomes unsafe.
It might make sense to try this combination live and see how it works, but it is clear that this option may not be available - both because the drives simply won't give it, and because of the need to keep the server online.

Answer 3

Is it possible to build a RAID1 of two SSDs for MS SQL DB on an LSI SAS9211-4i controller?

Can. The controller does not care what it costs in principle.

What can you say about the reliability of this solution?

Quite reliable.

There are big doubts about the controller, it is quite old, and cannot know about SSD in principle. And SSDs have such a thing as TRIM.

TRIM won't work of course, so use over-provisioning instead.

Therefore, I'm just leaning towards replacing with larger HDD disks.

If the speed of the HDD is enough for you, why not? SQL with a sufficient amount of RAM caches data quite tolerably and minimizes small and random disk accesses.