A fascinating shift is happening in the world of application caching. Rails 8 introduces the “Solid” trifecta (Cache, Queue, Cable) that leverages NVMe storage instead of traditional in-memory solutions like Redis. This got me thinking about the future of memory management in modern web applications.
For years, we’ve treated Redis as the go-to solution for caching, treating memory as the ultimate performance bottleneck. But here’s the twist: Modern NVMe drives are achieving read speeds of 7000+ MB/s. That’s faster than many DDR3 RAM modules from just a few years ago.
What this means for scalability:
1. The memory-first approach might be becoming outdated. NVMe storage provides persistence, massive capacity, and increasingly competitive speeds.
2. Rails 8’s Solid suite eliminates the need to manage a separate Redis instance, reducing operational complexity.
3. The cost-per-GB for NVMe storage is drastically lower than RAM.
My conclusion? We’re witnessing a paradigm shift. The future of scalable applications might not be about maximizing memory usage, but about leveraging advances in storage technology. For many applications, the complexity of managing Redis clusters could be replaced by simpler, storage-based solutions that offer similar performance with better durability and lower costs.
This doesn’t mean Redis is obsolete – it still shines for specific use cases requiring sub-millisecond responses. But for many web applications, the traditional memory-first architecture might be overkill.
What’s your take? Are you ready to move your caching layer to storage, or are you sticking with in-memory solutions?