Fusion-IO ioDrive review!

[webmaster]

First review of the Fusion-IO ioDrive that has more reads than any other post on this forum here:

http://www.dvnation.com/Fusion-IO-IODrive-SSD-Solid-State-Disk-Drive-Review.html

Next up: RAID!

[ChipMonk]

These benchmark numbers are amazing.

Your order page says "IN STOCK or up to two week lead time if we
run out", but Fusion has been shipping for a while, right? I take it
you've just started carrying these since the ioDrive isn't listed on
your "Decision Matrix".

Most sources I've seen list the 80MB ioDrive at $2400, and Linux
users can set up bootable ioDrives today.

[orbist]

I'm curious that you have not yet benchmarked any STEC drives?

FusionIO is aimed at the enterprise / server market - and is very different from the MTRON and Samsung ilk.

It would be interesting to see your same benchmarks against a ZeusIOPs SATA /SAS drive?

[deathtospam]

I'm curious to see how the ioDrives measure up, in terms of raw performance as well as performance-per-dollar, against Intel's new (and not yet available in stores) SSDs.


X25-M: 80-GB space, 250 MB/s sustained read, 70 MB/s sustained write, MSRP $600, MLC-based
X25-E: 80-GB space, 250 MB/s sustained read, 170 MB/s sustained write, MSRP $1200, SLC-based


ioDrives can't be configured in hardware RAID arrays (as far as I know); you have to create a software array via Windows 2003 ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc786912.aspx ).

Also, three X25-E SSDs or five X25-Ms in a RAID-5 will provide near the same level of performance as a single ioDrive, and at a similar price-per-GB cost. Using X25-Ms may be a bit slower on the write side, but the read side should be faster -- plus you get redundancy, which is critical for the enterprise.

Finally, the price of SSDs will continue to drop, and companies will continue to release faster models. Meanwhile, the price of ioDrives -- originally quoted at $2500 for the 80-GB model -- is actually increasing to $3000. So while the speed of the ioDrive is quite impressive, I'm not convinced it's the best option out there.

[deathtospam]

I'm curious that you have not yet benchmarked any STEC drives?

FusionIO is aimed at the enterprise / server market - and is very different from the MTRON and Samsung ilk.

It would be interesting to see your same benchmarks against a ZeusIOPs SATA /SAS drive?
The only STEC drive worth comparing would be the ZeusIOPS ( http://www.stec-inc.com/product/zeusiops.php ), which run at 220 MB/s read & 115 MB/s write, or possibly the Mach8IOPS ( http://www.stec-inc.com/product/mach8.php ), which does 100 MB/s read & write.

However, a quick Google search didn't turn up any pricing information, or places where I could buy them from.

[orbist]

You'd need to contact STEC direct, I think they only OEM them.

As for the Intel drives, do I remember correctly that they only claim 3,000 write IOPs? and ~35,000 read. So under a normal mixed 70/30 workload they are likely to be pretty poor in comparison with the ioDrive. Which is capable of 30,000 mixed sustained. Don't take any of the headline figures as fact, pure reads are easy to do for all these devices. Its the mixed and write performance that are key, and if it can be sustained for more than 2-3 minutes.

[webmaster]

I will address all the questions in this thread that have not been answered.
1. Someone said that the ioDrive is currently bootable in Linux. This is not true. As the review says, the ioDrive cannot be seen in BIOS and therefore is not currently bootable. Bootability has nothing to do with the OS you are running it on. Once the firmware update is available and applied (est Q4 '08) then the drive will be bootable under ANY OS for which there is currently a driver. They are working on drivers for Solaris, OSX and other popular OSes.
2. People talk a good game about the Intel SSDs, and yes, some people have reviewed samples, but please post a link where you can actually buy one today. You can buy the ioDrive today.
3. RAID. Someone incorrectly stated that the ioDrive is not RAIDable. You CAN RAID ioDrives. But remember, they are PCI-E cards, so the RAID must be done in software such as the dynamic disk service in Windows 64-bit. We will do a RAID comparison soon, just like the main article, so we can see how each of the drives in the review will scale on each of the tests.
4. The orginal price was $30 per GB but I was told by Fusion-IO that they were RAISING the price of the 80GB model during the week of 9/14/08 to $3000 for the 80GB. I do not control their pricing. SSD prices CAN rise as some of our customers noted with Memoright. They RAISED the price of their 128GB SSD earlier this year by $500 PER DRIVE! They have since lowered through the original price, but there is nothing else that competes with the ioDrive so I don't know what their incentive would be to lower prices soon since they feel they are SAVING big players money by replacing racks of drives and infrastructure with one drive with low heat output and low power requirements.
5. Sure, press releases say the ioDrive has been "available" for quite some time. I have been talking to Fusion-IO every week since March. It might have been available in a beta program earlier, but we bought our first one in July and just got permission to sell. We are the Internet's ONLY distributor. There are other ways to buy, but our price is the same that they would sell to you if you could buy direct. They told me they have not yet made a sale at less than MSRP.
6. STEC. I tested a new Mach8, but was told it was beta hardware. I was instructed not to publish the results, but we have have the right drive in every performance bin that is available today (i.e., ioDrive, Samsung, MTRON, Memoright, Silicon Power).
You guys took me by surprise with all these comments all of a sudden. Thanks again, and keep 'em coming.

[riffraff]

Thanks,

Good information is why I check this forum often.

Mike

[Turas]

I would also conder the bitmicro drives. Their drives are available now but only directly through them. They are designed for interprices and can be has in SAS/SATA/SCSI and even FC i believe. They are available in 2.5/3.5 format. They are definately on the pricey side but if you are talking enterprise storage I would think they would be in the mix. They claim 230MB sustained and 55k iops but I imagine those are just for reading

[deathtospam]

3. RAID. Someone incorrectly stated that the ioDrive is not RAIDable. You CAN RAID ioDrives. But remember, they are PCI-E cards, so the RAID must be done in software such as the dynamic disk service in Windows 64-bit. We will do a RAID comparison soon, just like the main article, so we can see how each of the drives in the review will scale on each of the tests.
I actually did mention both of these points (unable to hardware RAID ioDrives, but can be RAIDed within Windows). :) I never claimed that the ioDrive was unRAIDable -- I'd just prefer to have dedicated hardware doing it, for the sake of both speed and resilience.

5. Sure, press releases say the ioDrive has been "available" for quite some time. I have been talking to Fusion-IO every week since March. It might have been available in a beta program earlier, but we bought our first one in July and just got permission to sell. We are the Internet's ONLY distributor. There are other ways to buy, but our price is the same that they would sell to you if you could buy direct. They told me they have not yet made a sale at less than MSRP.
AFAIK, ioDrives have been available directly from FusionIO for at least two months now. They haven't made the page public, but when I contacted their sales department they directed me to a page where I could submit an order.

But this is just splitting hairs: even with the option of ordering directly from FusionIO, I'd rather do my purchasing via DVNation and let FusionIO focus on what they're best at: creating and improving their ioDrives.


6. STEC. I tested a new Mach8, but was told it was beta hardware. I was instructed not to publish the results, but we have have the right drive in every performance bin that is available today (i.e., ioDrive, Samsung, MTRON, Memoright, Silicon Power).
I find the lack of public information about STEC's ZeusIOPS drives interesting. My guess is that they expected they'd be king of the SSD market for quite some time... after all, 220Mbps/110Mbps isn't anything to sneeze at. But other players in the market have done a great job of driving up performance while pushing down price... the rapid growth of the SSD market probably caught them unawares.

[krofa]

This device is really jaw dropping!

Any idea whether 32 bit drivers are being developed as well? Any betas?

I've never been excited about any IT news since the dawn of Conroe - which was my first such "unbelieving" excitement!

Cheers!

[aperrigo]

I was just wondering if anyone has tried to use Clonezilla or Norton Ghost to push an OS onto the FUSIONIO Drive?

I would do it myself but I don't have the spare money right now to buy the drive.
My own inner conflict says that although this could possibly be done the drive itself may not be bootable until FUSION IO updates the flash for it.

I just thought i would ask to see if the techs at DVNATION thought of trying this test or not.

PS
The Energizer Bunny was arrested last week...charged with BATTERY.!?*

[atlr]

I look forward to the planned article about a RAID configuration of ioDrives.
I hope you include a survey of what motherboards you find have the greatest number of PCIe x4 connectors.

I just read the press release about ioSAN cards. Has availability been announced?

[aperrigo]

Not to mention, Fusion IO is releasing an high end Home User version of the Fusion IO drive at around 1000 dollars in Q1 2009. specs would expect this version to use around 50K IOps....and also use a RAID controller...but it still won't wash my dishes.

[orbist]

There will not be 32bit drivers AFAIK

I find it amusing that figures here are often quoted in MB/s - by far fusion leads the pack with >600MB/s

However, to me, IOPs count more than MB/s - IOPs are much much better with SSD's (factors of 200x or more) vs MB/s (factors of 2x or more)

Orders of magnitude...

[efranchi]

....
bad....
...to bad
click here... (http://forum.ssdworld.ch/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=50)

If you buy 5 SSD SATA from 16GB and you oput them on your motherboard, especially a motherboard with Intel Chipset (so you can enable write back cache) you'll have more performance and you'll save your money.
With HDTunePro, a raid with only 2 memoright GT have more write performaces click here... (http://www.nexthardware.com/recensioni/scheda/132_1067.htm)

If you want to spend the same money (around 2'500dollars) it means you have enough to buy also an adaptec 5805, and you have more than 1'000 MB/s click here... (http://forum.ssdworld.ch/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=51)

[Renfro]

The SSDworld PCI-eXtreme Combo is really interesting.

The real world cut and paste tests (http://forum.ssdworld.ch/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=52)compared to the FusionIO is astonishing, but I'm not expert enough to know if there are any flaws with their test methodology. However, if their figures hold up, then I'd much rather go for the combo method than the FusionIO or ioXtreme.

The combo is affordable too (£970 pounds for the 40GB version).