ioDrive Duo: Meet the Worlds Fastest SSD
Last year, the computer industry saw solid state hard drives (SSDs) come into the mainstream. Since that point, the read and write speeds of such drives has been a hotly contested issue, with companies like Intel, OCZ, and A-Data constantly vying for the title of "world's fastest SSD."
Enter Fusion-io. The company's 80 GB ioDrive is able to produce read and write speeds of 700 MB/sec. and 550 MB/sec., respectively (our review confirms this level of performance). Those speeds combined with the ioDrive's ability to reach 102,000 read IOPS and 92,000 write IOPS (In/Out Operations per Second) meant the ioDrive was the fastest solid state drive available...until now.
Fusion-io today announced its newest storage solution: the ioDrive Duo. The Duo picks up where its older brother left off, bringing unprecedented read and write speed with it. According to Fusion-io, the ioDrive Duo can read and write at 1.5 GB/sec. and 1.4 GB/sec., giving it over twice the performance of its predecessor. The Duo can also reach 186,000 read IOPS and 167,000 write IOPS.
“Many database and system administrators are finding that SANs [Storage Area Networks] are too expensive and don’t meet performance, protection and capacity utilization expectations,” said David Flynn, CTO of Fusion-io. “This is why more and more application vendors are moving toward application-centric solid-state storage. The ioDrive Duo offers the enterprise the advantages of application-centric storage without application-specific programming.”
The ioDrive Duo will be available next month three initiial sizes: 160 GB, 320 GB, and 640 GB. Sometime in the second half of 2009, a 1.28 TB version will be released, making the ioDrive Duo the fastest as well as one of the largest solid state-based storage solutions available.
Unfortunately, the ioDrive Duo does come with some asterisks. It cannot be used as a boot drive, and due to its drivers also requires the use of a 64-bit operating system. While the price is TBA, the original 80 GB ioDrive is still over $3,000, meaning the 160 GB ioDrive Duo will be at least that expensive, with the 1.28 TB version probably going for five figures. Whether you plan to spring for one or not, the ioDrive Duo has certainly set a new standard for SSD speed on a myriad of levels. With Steve Wozniak now on the Fusion-io payroll, who knows what the company will think of next.
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jacobdrj TH, you have got to investigate why FusionIO is not able to be a boot drive. Lack of talent? Lack of standardization? I gotta know!Reply -
mavroxur I dont see why companies haven't added a boot ROM to these and made them bootable yet. It's not like they're exactly venturing into uncharted waters by making add-in cards bootableReply -
fuser jacobdrjTH, you have got to investigate why FusionIO is not able to be a boot drive. Lack of talent? Lack of standardization? I gotta know!Because the major BIOS vendors don't support booting from a pci-e device?Reply -
mavroxur fuserBecause the major BIOS vendors don't support booting from a pci-e device?Reply
That's why bootable add-in cards carry an onboard boot ROM usually. -
fuser I was totally guessing. In any case it doesn't matter in an enterprise environment. Servers stay up for months or years at a time, so an extra 30 seconds boot time isn't important.Reply -
jacobdrj I would have thought of that myself, except that add-in cards are not theorhetically any different than what FIO is doing. If you can boot off of a RAID card, why not use the same method to boot off a 'MEGA-RAID' card, which in many ways, is what the FIO is.Reply -
A Stoner Give it a year, and everyone can enjoy this speed!!! The pace at which SSD's are maturing, unless you are making money off your PC, these things are pointless to buy today, because far superior devices are around the corner. I am happy to wait until a device has matured before leeping into the fray.Reply -
hellwig jacobdrjTH, you have got to investigate why FusionIO is not able to be a boot drive. Lack of talent? Lack of standardization? I gotta know!In their review of the first IoDrive, Tom's stated that the IoDrive does NOT present a standard I/O interface, meaning the BIOS doesn't recognize it as a bootable device. This is probably by design, why would you need to boot from the IoDrive? This device is designed (by cost alone) to only be used in Database or datacenter applications. Those machines probably never reboot (barring hardware upgrades). Therefore, why add more complexity to something already expensive and complex? Who cares if your fileserver takes a few extra seconds to boot when it has up-time in the thousands of hours? This is purely a storage device. Next you'll be wondering why you could never boot from your old tape-based DLT drive.Reply -
jacobdrj In that same article (IIRC) also had the CEO recognizing that a huge driving force in the tech industry were the extreme gaming enthusiasts, recognizing that there was a niche, and one that trickles down. They can't 'have their cake, and eat it too'. By not offering it as a bootable option, they are less likely to get that bit of market share, and have lost ground, maybe permenently, to cheaper, but similarly effective SSD's. I have to immagine that FIO wants to get their share of this lucrative market, particularly having the de facto fastest storage interface. If there are drivers to make it a storage device, you should be able to write bios to at least interperate this as one as well.Reply -
scarpa In a few months they'll need something faster than the PCI-x which only has 2000Mbs when this new Io duo drive already reached 1500MB/s(read) and 1400MB/s(write).Reply
SSD are improving very fast, I say we should support it by buying only SSDs even though it's cheaper to get a HDD.