Forums » General Discussions » The Lounge - General Discussion - Off Topic » Fusion-io ioXtreme PCI Express SSD Sneak Peek!

Fusion-io ioXtreme PCI Express SSD Sneak Peek!

rated by 0 users
This post has 8 Replies | 1 Follower

Top 10 Contributor
Posts 7,274
Points 185,745
Joined: Sep 2007
Reply
News Posted: Mon, Oct 26 2009 11:15 PM
If you've been watching our previous coverage of Fusion-io's almost too good be true PCI Express SSD products, you'll know that while the company makes no bones about the fact that their enterprise class cards are ridiculously expensive, they are also planning on delivering an "enthusiast" class card that will align better price-wise with the average end user just looking for killer storage performance.  It appears the planning process is over today and though it was delayed a month or two, Fusion-io is now executing on that plan. 

Fusion-io's ioXtreme and ioXtreme Pro cards just showed up to the Boston HH Test Labs and as we like to say around here, they're looking pretty .


Left:  Fusion-io's ioXtreme  - Right:  Fusion-io's ioXtreme Pro


Left:  ioXtreme Pro  - Right:  ioXtreme - Click for high res.

We've received two cards for testing here; one is the ioXtreme Pro, that you can install multiple cards into a system for RAID configurations and the other is the ioXtreme for single-card installations.  Save for the heat sink color coding and the "X" logo on the standard card's backplate, it's almost impossible to tell the two cards apart, at least mechanically.


Fusion-io ioAdministrator Software

Fusion-io's ioAdministrator software allows for basic management and monitoring of the drive volume.  You can also perform a low-level format of the drive and choose settings from maximum write performance with less total capacity, to max capacity with lower performance. (Update: 4:50PM this function is not available on the ioXtreme but only on the enterprise-class ioDrive product)

This software functions very much like Fusion-io's standard ioManager software we showed you here.  As a quick-take on performance, we've formatted an 80GB ioXtreme Pro with maximum capacity settings and ran it through an ATTO Disk Benchmark run for grins and giggles.


ioXtreme Pro ATTO Performance
Click for high res.


Simple, Half-Height PCI-Express Elegance - More details and a full review soon!

It's true, your eyes do not deceive you.  You're looking at a product that offers 300MB/sec average write throughput and 750 - 800MB/sec of average read throughput.  We're going to strap on a drool bib and get back to testing these bad boys a bit more. RAID 0 anyone?  Stay tuned!
Top 100 Contributor
Posts 604
Points 8,020
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: Texas
Reply
acarzt replied on Tue, Oct 27 2009 1:53 PM

that is some impressive read speeds! That's twice as fast as my 2 OCZ Vertex drives in a RAID 0!

Core i7 920|EVGA X58|GTX295|2x30GB Vertex RAID0

CompTIA A+ Certified, CompTIA Network+ Certified, MCP Certified.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 50 Contributor
Posts 2,061
Points 26,810
Joined: May 2008
Location: U.S.
Reply
3vi1 replied on Tue, Oct 27 2009 1:59 PM

WOW!

Two questions: Pricing, and does it require any kind of OS-specific drivers?

I wouldn't expect it to need special drivers, since you will be booting from it, but am pretty sure there would be Win-specific utilities needed to use it in a RAID operation implementation - unless they recommend a fully softRAID config, which should work well given it's speed..

People read the stupidest things.  Like this sig, for instance.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 500 Contributor
Posts 209
Points 2,545
Joined: Jul 2009
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reply
ClemSnide replied on Tue, Oct 27 2009 5:30 PM

Drool.

Given that the previous release retailed for $3300 (80 GB), I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the new release will be less than that. In fact, I'd even guess less than $1700, since that's the price for OCZ's smallest (250 GB) PCIe SSD.

And throwing caution to the wind: I'm saying $850. That's a rough average price for Intel's 64 GB X-25E SSD, which is also a SLC.

Quick poll: Haw many here would buy the non-RAIDable, 80 GB model for $850? I'd have to say no, since it would still be too much money, but I'd be looking for ways to afford it. Hmm, I only need one kidney...

"I didn't cry when Bambi's mother was shot... but I cried when HAL was turned off."

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 50 Contributor
Posts 2,061
Points 26,810
Joined: May 2008
Location: U.S.
Reply
3vi1 replied on Tue, Oct 27 2009 6:43 PM

>> Quick poll: Haw many here would buy the non-RAIDable, 80 GB model for $850?

Iiiiii dunno... I'd have to wait another month to change the oil in my Bugatti Veyron.

People read the stupidest things.  Like this sig, for instance.

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Posts 5,249
Points 77,750
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: United States, Virginia
Moderator
Reply
bob_on_the_cob replied on Wed, Oct 28 2009 6:24 AM

Can't wait to see drives like this come down to my level. I think I drooled a little.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 150 Contributor
Posts 467
Points 5,040
Joined: Apr 2009
Location: Northern Virginia
Reply
realneil replied on Wed, Oct 28 2009 8:11 AM

I bruised my chin when it hit my new Extreme Gear Keyboard.

I sometime wonder if I'll still be around to see these kinds of drive become affordable to the most of us out here in reality-land.

Intel DP55KG with Liquid Cooled Intel Core i7 870 CPU @ 3.75GHz 

8GB Kingston Hyper-X DDR-3 RAM

2GB GTX-285 Video

2 SATA-II 7200 RPM 1-TB HDD'S in RAID-0

LiteOn 22x DVD±R/±RW DL

LiteOn Blu-Ray Reader

ViewSonic 22" Wide Screen LCD Display

Xtreme Gear USB Keyboard

Xtreme Gear USB Mouse

CyberPower 800W Power Supply

CoolerMaster Storm Sniper Gaming Case

  • | Post Points: 5
Not Ranked
Posts 23
Points 265
Joined: Oct 2009
Location: New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Reply
martin_nj replied on Wed, Oct 28 2009 8:55 AM

so if SSDs that read at 200+ make windows lighting fast, will these new 800+ drives make a visible difference? nope.

will they hurt your wallet? yep.

so then aspiring reader, who needs these drives? people running database servers.

and those people don't care about price because the data on their servers is worth 10x the hardware. at least it should be =]

will we see these in our rigs in the next 5 years? nope.

~~Dell Laptop , D520, Core2Duo @ 2.0Ghz undervolted to 1.0v

  • | Post Points: 5
Not Ranked
Posts 2
Points 25
Joined: Nov 2009
Reply
Ellem replied on Mon, Nov 2 2009 1:20 PM

"so then aspiring reader, who needs these drives? people running database servers."

actually, I found mine quite useful for photoshop and heavy grphx work. very very very useful when creating game mods and rendering.

  • | Post Points: 5
Page 1 of 1 (9 items) | RSS