Five reasons why NVMe SSD just makes more sense for shared hosting
Find out why NVMe SSDs are the future of storage technology for booming businesses
Whether you are a business blogger, an online store owner, or a web designer one thing goes without saying - you want your site to offer powerful performance, lightning speed, and be easy on the eye. The beauty of a site may lie in the eye of the beholder, but its performance (speed included) is directly related to the storage technology deployed by the web hosting company whose solution you’re renting out. This is why you should make it your mission to look for a host that will supply you with a feature-rich yet pocket-friendly solution that won’t push you to make compromises about performance.
Technology is evolving at a brisk pace, speeding up the shifts between trending technologies in the web hosting industry. One such trend is called NVMe SSD hosting, so let’s make out what it stands for and what the advantages of utilizing such a solution are.
To break it down, NVMe is short for non-volatile memory express which is a protocol for new solid-state drives (SSD) for securing the fastest speed and highest response time. Also, in contrast with volatile memory (such as RAM and cache memory), NVMe doesn’t lose stored data during power outages but rather retains it even if the power is lost. This makes it one of the safest options around.
In short, NVMe SSD hosting is a superior, faster, and more stable solution than standard shared hosting. So, in the following text, we’ve summed up the advantages of using NVMe SSD hosting into five reasons (for the sake of convenience), but feel free to explore and find more for yourself.
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1. NVMe SSD promises powerful performance
Probably the most promising property of an NVMe hosting server is greater speed and improved performance in general. This is primarily because NVMe communicates via PCIe and bypasses the old-fashioned SATA bus from the CPU which results in faster performance speed. As a result, a hosting solution based on the NVMe protocol will be considerably faster than a standard one. This major difference in speed it offers can be attributed to the utilization of the features of its hardware.
Also, NVMe drives support multiple IOPs (input/output operations) and much more than the ATA interface used in early-generation drives, such as SATA and SAS technologies. While NVMe drives can support up to 64,000 IOPs, with older technologies such as SATA the queue depth is less than 32 entries. So it’s no surprise that NVMe SSD-powered hosting solutions are considered at least six times faster than standard HDD hosting ones, and they’ll support multiple sites, databases, email accounts, and massive storage without a hitch. In a way, with NVMe SSD hosting you can get the speed of a dedicated virtual private server (VPS) without paying through the nose for one.
2. It’s extremely energy-efficient
It is a known fact that SSDs use up less energy than their HDD counterparts, but it’s not as known that NVMe SSD has refined the energy efficiency of SATA-based SSD even further. The intelligent queueing system combined with optimized workload allocation makes it possible for NVMe drives to use an energy-saving standby mode and reduce energy consumption dramatically. When inactive, they can bring down power consumption by 97% which makes NVMe SSD hosting a good (and cost-efficient) choice for eco-conscious individuals and owners of enterprise-level businesses alike.
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If you thought that a perfect combination of high performance and low power consumption doesn’t exist in the real world, think twice. Not only is NVMe technology much greener than traditional storage interfaces but it also proves that it pays off to be green.
3. It’ll save you both time and money
Although hosting with NVMe SSD is slightly costlier than traditional shared hosting, it provides more powerful performance and greater value for the money in the long run. All successful businesses should come to a point where the most straightforward and most cost-efficient way to boost a site’s performance is to upgrade the hosting plan to a higher level.
When faced with telltale signs it’s time to move on, most users move from shared hosting to VPS hosting for superior performance, scalability, and security. And if their businesses start to boom seriously, they’ll likely consider moving to a managed dedicated server solution, which will cost a whole lot more.
By choosing NVMe SSD shared hosting you can save yourself the trouble of constantly upgrading standard shared hosting plans (or going for more advanced types of hosting), stash away some money, and still get to enjoy similar performance as with (for instance) a VPS solution.
4. It’ll help you keep your site data safe
Since NVMe SSD technology’s command set is created with the security container commands that exist in ACS, SAS, and ATA interfaces, it’s completely compatible with industry-standard security systems. What’s more, NVMe is non-volatile in nature, which means it doesn’t lose any data in case of a sudden power outage or similar challenges.
In contrast to volatile memory which needs a steady source of power in order to retain data, NVMe is permanent by its nature and it will safeguard your data even if the system is turned off. So, it’s no wonder this type of memory is usually used for secondary and long-term persistent storage.
Although this isn’t something completely new in the web hosting industry, it’s solid stuff and should be mentioned nevertheless.
5. NVMe SSD hosting is future-proof
NVMe SSD hosting may not be as widespread as other types of hosting today, but it shows all signs of becoming a smash hit in the near future. As the NVMe technology evolves and its cost is no longer out of budget, more and more businesses will move towards flash-based storage systems that enforce NVMe and can support mixed workloads. The very thought of using a more powerful system that consumes less energy never seemed more appealing, and it’s hardly surprising that NVMe is expected to eventually replace other storage systems.
So, if you’re looking for a new type of storage solution for your hosting, NVMe seems to be a future-proof investment. In addition to all of the points mentioned above, it is also upgradable for forthcoming storage technologies which means you won’t have to worry about falling behind the times for the foreseeable future.
NVMe SSD hosting for the win
In a nutshell, NVMe SSD hosting is a next-generation storage technology that combines high performance with low energy consumption without burning through your budget. So, if you’re making a checklist for your site infrastructure, make sure to put NVMe SSD at the top of your list, since it just makes so much sense for shared hosting.
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Mirza Bahic is a freelance tech journalist and blogger from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. For the past four years, Mirza has been ghostwriting for a number of tech start-ups from various industries, including cloud, retail and B2B technology.