By splicing two ioDrives together on a single card, Fusion-io has shown the scaleability of their uber-fast flash technology by simultaneously doubling the throughput and capacity of their ioDrive line. As if 3/4 GB/sec was not enough, the new boards (dubbed ioDrive Duo) promise to deliver upwards of 1.5GB/sec speeds. Capacity is also increased from the prior 80/160/320GB to 160/320/640GB, with the possibility of 1.28TB as higher capacity flash memory becomes available.
When driven by sufficient system horsepower, these new screamers can exceed 200,000 IOs/sec. The improved bandwidth is made possible by doubling the available PCI-E bandwidth over its predecessor. The ioDrive Duo employs either 8-lane PCI-Express or 4-lanes at PCI-Express v2.0. This brings the useable bus bandwidth to a bidirectional 2GB/sec (the same throughput as Intel’s DMI bus).
The Fusion-io guys are wisely building their line around a modular design, and have done so from the very beginning. The removable module of the original ioDrive is identical to the pair used on the Duo. The visible improvements to the base card are beefier power handling / filtering circuitry and added logic to handle teaming both modules. Note the green highlighted areas of the below photos:
The original ioDrive
The new and improved ioDrive Duo
This ingenious modular design opens the door for future gains in capacity and bandwidth. All that would be required is a base card to accomodate additional modules (and a system capable of Ludicrous Speed).
As a side note, we at PCPer.com would like to wish Steve Wozniak (Chief Scientist of the Fusion-io advisory board), a speedy recovery.