How to use an SSD?

[Eugene N. Miya]

Most people will tell you that you use the SSD like a disk.

That's fine, but in this world that's kind of ambiguous.
I did a little work a few months back (for myself, Denning would
call it "tinkering") on trying to form some opinions on what and how to
balance the amount of work on a CPU and on the SSD.  You have to be
careful because the configurations of Crays vary immensely.

My suggestion is to write a simple benchmark.  Try and figure out
how much work you need to do on a CPU to avoid SSD thrashing.
Try to make certain your codes do more work than this.
Try to develop a feel how to structure you code before going off and
just doing it.

If you are really hurting for memory, and you find this all too much
work (writing for an SSD), you should consider upgrading to a Cray-2 8).

See, we told you so 8).  But no one ever listens to us.

--e. nobuo miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene at orville.nas.nasa.gov
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