# Elasticsearch using SSD vs HDD comparison **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [March 28, 2019, 6:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242 "2019-03-28T06:11:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jasony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@jasony](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jasony)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 6:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242/1 "2019-03-28T06:11:37Z")
Hello, I wonder if there are good blog or page describes Elasticsearch performance comparison with SSD vs HDD. I know Elasticsearch recommends SSD for better performance, but if there are comparison information in detail btw using SSD and HDD, it would be very helpful. - here is my use case. i will use them with xpack platinum license for anomaly detection. using SSD is better for "searching" or "indexing" performance improvement? please advise. thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 6:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242/2 "2019-03-28T06:44:32Z")
I am not aware of any direct comparisons. SSDs generally provide far better disk I/O than even fast spinning disks, especially for random access loads. If you run a benchmark where you push Elasticsearch to the limit with a mixed indexing and query load, a cluster backed by SSDs will in my experience perform much better. It will depend a lot on the use case though. A lot of use-cases do however not necessarily operate Elasticsearch at peak performance. For a lot of large scale use cases, especially where data has a long retention period, running clusters on spinning disks is perfectly fine. I would therefore recommend you run some realistic benchmarks to see which fit your use case best or provide some additional details about your use case to get more accurate estimates. ---
**Author:** ![jasony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@jasony](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jasony)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 6:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242/3 "2019-03-28T06:53:31Z")
> [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](#): > > especially where data has a long retention period, running clusters on spinning disks is perfectly fine. thank you for your reply. "especially where data has a long retention period, running clusters on spinning disks is perfectly fine." my logstash creates "daily" based index, and about 80% query performed against to the latest index. i would understand more why a long retention period data is good with spinning disk. so, daily based index is always better with ssd? ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 6:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242/4 "2019-03-28T06:59:23Z")
I am assuming that you want to use a significant portion of your storage. Spinning disks typically has a lot of storage but low I/O performance, which means that the will only support a relatively low indexing/query rate compared to SSDs. If you have a short retention period and want to use all the storage available, you may need to index more data every day than the spinning disks can support. This is why I recommend spinning disks for use cases with longer retention periods where a lot of the data sits idle on disk for long periods. Does that make sense? ---
**Author:** ![jasony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@jasony](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jasony)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 7:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242/5 "2019-03-28T07:09:30Z")
Yes! 😀thank you for all replies! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 7:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-using-ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/174242/6 "2019-04-25T07:09:35Z")
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