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.
