Should I start using SSD drives ?

I just heard I've been writing about a tool that evaluates whether it might be useful to start using SSD (Solid State Dsik) drives. Well, that's a little too much credit, because I didn't even know such a tool existed.

First of all, if you're interested in SSD drives and their performance with DB2 for z/OS, there's a Redguide that appeared last week : 'Ready to Access DB2 for z/OS Data on Solid-State Drives'. It discusses the following topics :

• Get to know the solid-state drives in z/OS environments
• Compare performance when accessing DB2 for z/OS data. This elaborates on DB2 synchronous I/Os, DB2 sequential I/O, DB2 list prefetch, DB2 list prefetch with striping and DB2 synchronous I/O using one or two RAID ranks
  
• Understand requirements and applicability

The Redguide also mentions the tool for identifying candidate volumes to move to SSD : "New z/OS SAS-based tooling analyzes the SMF 42-6 and SMF 74-5 records to produce a report that identifies data sets and volumes that can benefit from residing on SSD technology". You can download the tool from the Z/OS downloads web page.