Need guidance to get FusionIO SX300-6400 running on OpenSUSE

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
884
312
63
38
I bought one of these: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/uk-cheap-fusion-io-£150-3-2tb-and-£400-6-4tb-pci-e-ssds.25348/page-4
Specifically the 6.4TB version, which in Windows reports as SX300-6400 model.

Currently running OpenSUSE 15.0 with a 4.12.14 kernel version.
What are the steps necessary to get the OS to recognize the drive? Which packages to download, how to compile/install them? Please be patient, so far I pretty much avoided getting any hardware that had no drivers in the official repositories. Linux user here, not a dev ;) Before breaking stuff I thought I should rather ask.

Edit1: I went ahead and used this source
snuf/iomemory-vsl
Compiled like a charm after installing some missing packages, but now I have 3 rpm files created and am not quite sure which one to use
iomemory-vsl-4.12.14-lp150.12.70-default-3.2.15.1700-1.0.x86_64.rpm
iomemory-vsl-source-3.2.15.1700-1.0.x86_64.rpm
iomemory-vsl-config-4.12.14-lp150.12.70-default-3.2.15.1700-1.0.x86_64.rpm
 
Last edited:

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
884
312
63
38
hmmm...
I deducted that I need all 3 packages and installed them, along with the additional utilities.
The result after a reboot: a login loop
I get to the graphical login screen, enter my password, the screen goes black for a few seconds and I am back to the login screen.

Edit:
Fresh install of Leap 15.1, for now without Nvidia drivers
I got through the process of re-compiling and installing the 3 modules and the fio utilities. Then I followed the next steps here snuf/iomemory-vsl, namely
Code:
sudo cp -r iomemory-vsl/root/usr/src/iomemory-vsl-3.2.15 /usr/src/
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/dkms/iomemory-vsl/3.2.15/build
sudo ln -s /usr/src/iomemory-vsl-3.2.15 /var/lib/dkms/iomemory-vsl/3.2.15/source
sudo dkms build -m iomemory-vsl -v 3.2.15
sudo dkms install -m iomemory-vsl -v 3.2.15
sudo modprobe iomemory-vsl
All of this apparently went without a hitch, at least I did not get an obvious error message.
But still, when I check the status I get no device found
Code:
# fio-status
No ioMemory devices found for installed driver. Check if there are ioMemory devices
and the correct ioMemory driver package for those devices has been installed.
 
Last edited:

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
884
312
63
38
Yes, I should definitely try that.
But then again, there won't be any new drivers, and the old drivers don't seem to work with newer Linux kernels. So as soon as I do an upgrade, the SSD becomes unusable.
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
784
439
63
42
Sorry, just catching up on PMs and saw your link to your thread.

Got everything squared away yet?
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
784
439
63
42
You can certainly find faster nvme stuff, but nothing with the wear life of an ioDrive. I doubt we'll ever see that kind of wear life ever again :(
 

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
884
312
63
38
Is wear life more than just TBW rating? Because I can see quite a few newer SSDs with similar or higher TBW than the 22PB of my drive. I probably don't need the highest endurance anyway.
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
784
439
63
42
For the ioDrives, the PBW is only the warrantied wear life... the actual wear life is much higher.
 

alex_stief

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2016
884
312
63
38
Isn't that the case for more or less all SSDs?
Manufacturers have to replace every SSD that fails below TBW within the warranty period. If I had to make the calculations, I would make sure to set the TBW to a value low enough, so most SSDs will run much longer than the guaranteed write endurance.
My theory is backed up by tests (Achtung: german :p): SSD-Langzeittest beendet: Exitus bei 9,1 Petabyte
Even the cheap SSDs made it beyond their advertised TBW, the last one (Samsung 850 Pro) failed at 9.1PB.
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
784
439
63
42
Also, what SSDs are you looking at that have wear life in the 20s to 30 petabytes? I haven't seen any recently... all have been in TBW...
 

acquacow

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2017
784
439
63
42
There are quite a few of them. Of course, most of them are not targeted at consumers. But neither were the FusionIO cards.
Solid State Drives (SSD) mit TBW: ab 20PB Preisvergleich geizhals.eu EU

I am putting my hopes into the Samsung PCIe cards. Missed out on a deal about a year ago, and never saw them this cheap since.
Aah, so there are finally some enterprise SSDs with some decent wear life then. I should hope with 5+ years more R&D and an entirely new nand process (3D), they might finally be able to do something decent with it.

Still, if you compare the wear life TB to TB, FIO still has at least a 2x wear life advantage.

And it's still cheaper to buy used FIO stuff than it is some of that newer enterprise nvme/pci-e product.