353GB Fusion-io FS1-003-356-CS

[T_Minus]

Anyone have anymore information on these?

Endurance?

Read/Write performance?

Planning to use 2 for SLOG, and was curious how they've worked for others compared to the S3700 which I'm waiting for a deal for to get more of or NVME whichever comes first

 

[Biren78]

I'd be more worried about driver support.

 

[T_Minus]

I'll be holding the seller to their description, and specifications in terms of it being ESXI compatible, but I too am worried it won't be seen properly or may have already been worn out.

We'll see in a week or so. I just wish they had published specs that were easy to find...

 

[Biren78]

What version of esxi?

 

[Deci]

to repeat what was said in the PM, that model number looks like a first gen card, those are easy to obtain drivers for unlike the non oem iodrive2, being EOL they simply provide the firmware and drivers on their website for anyone who creates a free account to download.

 

[T_Minus]

What version of esxi?

ioDrive :: Fusion-io

*Thanks to Deci for link.

 

[DaveBC]

I've bought two of these FS1-003-353-CS. $199 EA, $50 shipping to Canada (USD)
I installed the VSL software from SanDisk.
Current firmware is Firmware v6.0.0, rev 107006 Public

Before I try flashing this with fusion_3.2.10-20150212.fff should I consider HP OEM or other drivers? Is there any downside to flashing the SanDisk download?

Anyone know whose PN this is? HP/Dell/Fusion-IO?

 

[Deci]

Firmware is specific to the branding of the drive, the drivers are not.

If it's a non branded drive you can use the firmware from fusionio/sandisk. Otherwise you need to get them from who evers brand is on it as it will not let you flash it with another brands/non rebranded firmware.

 

[DaveBC]

Here's what the update looked like if anyone wonders

fio-update-iodrive fusion_3.2.10-20150212.fff
WARNING: DO NOT TURN OFF POWER OR RUN ANY IODRIVE UTILITIES WHILE THE FIRMWARE UPDATE IS IN PROGRESS
Please wait...this could take a while

WARNING: IF YOU ARE UPGRADING FROM VSL 2.x.x, AFTER THIS FIRMWARE UPDATE YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO PERFORM A LOW-LEVEL FIO-FORMAT, WHICH WILL ERASE ALL USER DATA ON THE DEVICE. SEE RELEASE NOTES FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.
Do you wish to continue [y/n]? y
Updating: [====================] (100%) -
fct0 - successfully updated controller firmware from 6.0.0.107006 to 7.1.17.116786.

Please reboot this machine to activate new firmware.

No stall at 12% for me.

 

[DaveBC]

So I've officially hijacked this thread... This doesn't look so good to me

Reserve space status: WARNING: Nearing reserve space wear-out; Reserves: 0.00%, warn at 10.00%
Active media: 0.00%
Lifetime data volumes:
   Physical bytes written: 197,879,967,514,104
   Physical bytes read   : 89,323,974,303,096
...
ACTIVE WARNINGS:
    The ioMemory is close to wearing out - reduced-write mode is
        triggered when reserve is depleted. Formatting to a smaller
        size will free up reserve.

I first hoped the message was a red herring, did a low level format at 100% capacity, same error. Now I repeated the format at 10% capacity, same error regarding reserve space.

Update: 2nd drive reports 0% reserves as well, with only 0.383 PB written.
The seller listed 30 days warranty. Anyone have any ideas before I take him up on that?

 

[markpower28]

Is this a FusionIO card or HP/Dell card?

Have you try to downgrade firmware to 3.2.8 or 3.2.6?

 

[DaveBC]

I downgraded VSL to 3.2.8, intending to flash the fusion_3.2.8-20140508.fff firmware that comes with it. I haven't changed firmware yet, however fio-status looks much better now.

Reserve space status: Healthy; Reserves: 100.00%, warn at 10.00%

The active media is now shown to be 100%. I'm not certain what active media is even supposed to indicate, but the zero it was show before seemed wrong.

 

[Entz]

@T_Minus have you done any sync write/SLOG testing on these? Curious how hey hold up vs a 3700 (most drives fail miserably at it)

 

[T_Minus]

I kind of back-burnered for now, I have a lot of hardware to test. Including more of these.

If I could get it running in CentOS7 quickly I could run some tests as that's the system the working/updated units are in right now. I haven't had time to get them setup/configured with CEntOS though, a guide would be useful

 

[DaveBC]

Here's some completely unscientific CrystalDiskMark results, the 4K QD1 looks good, we'll see what happens when I get them to the colo and use them as slog devices:

Drive one
           Sequential Read :   648.370 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   448.301 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   581.961 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   442.202 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    44.315 MB/s [ 10819.1 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    77.120 MB/s [ 18828.2 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   182.473 MB/s [ 44549.2 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   194.064 MB/s [ 47378.8 IOPS]

Drive two
           Sequential Read :   666.927 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   497.899 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   599.585 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   496.584 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    44.547 MB/s [ 10875.9 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    75.291 MB/s [ 18381.6 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   192.352 MB/s [ 46960.8 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   222.371 MB/s [ 54289.7 IOPS]

 

[Patrick]

Man, @DaveBC - thank you for this. I just got 2 of the 353GB drives and they were not working. Forgot (somehow) that I had the old HP software on. Re-install, reboot and it is flashing firmware finally.

My ioSphere says 4PBW endurance on the 353GB version.

 

[Deci]

@T_Minus have you done any sync write/SLOG testing on these? Curious how hey hold up vs a 3700 (most drives fail miserably at it)

I will have an iodrive 2 running as a slog soonish, just waiting on some final parts to arrive. I have a crystaldiskmark result for the drive in a thread about it in this section. Comparatively the version 2 drive does much better at the low qd and high qd tests, they appear to really show their strength when you start running multiple streams at them.

5 stream sync write to the drive was giving 500mb/s + single stream sync write was about 130mb/s

 

[T_Minus]

Yeah, from my benchmarks it's def > S3700... just curious how it will affect SLOG if at all

I need to get mine going, just something else to finish... LOL!!

Looking forward to your results.

 

[Patrick]

Update: 2nd drive reports 0% reserves as well, with only 0.383 PB written.
The seller listed 30 days warranty. Anyone have any ideas before I take him up on that?

My first one is 0.329PBW of 4PB endurance rating. It is also giving me the reserves warning. Formatted capacity is 327GB. Do I just need to download VSL 3.8 because 3.10 has a bug?

 

[markpower28]

VSL 3.8 because 3.10 has a bug

This maybe the reason why HP only listed up to 3.2.8 driver/firmware for their card.