EU UK Cheap Fusion-io £150 3.2TB and £400 6.4TB PCI-e SSDs

[YardBouncer]

As the title suggests.
Grade B indicates 70-99% endurance remaining.

My 3.2TB example arrived very quickly and was excellently packed. Firmware was up to date.
Excellent physical condition, looked new.
Both types are OEM Sandisk branded ie no custom firmware etc.
Not sure if this counts as a bargain but I was impressed with it. No affiliation BTW.

Details on my card can be seen here at post 256:
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-iodrive-2-1-2tb-reference-page.11287/page-13

£150 (£180 inc VAT) SanDisk Fusion-io 3.2TB MLC ioScale PCI-e SSD F11-002-3T20-CS-0001 - Grade B

I bought one a couple of days ago. 76.4% endurance remaining ie ~15PB left and 100% reserves intact.
100% endurance examples are £200 (£240 inc VAT)

Fusion-io 3.2TB MLC ioScale Accelerator Card - Grade B

• PCIe Gen 2, 4x electrical 8x mechanical Interface
• 3.2TB Storage
• 1.2GB/s write speed
• 1.4GB/s read speed
• Full Size Bracket
• Part Number F11-002-3T20-CS-0001

==========================================

£400 (£480 inc VAT) SanDisk Fusion-io 6.4TB PCIe SSD SDFACCMOS-6T40-SF1 - Grade B
100% endurance examples are £500 (£600 inc VAT)

SanDisk Fusion-io 6.4TB PCIe Application Accelerator - Grade B

• PCIe Gen 2, x8 Interface
• 6.4TB Storage
• 2.1GB/s write speed
• 2.7GB/s read speed
• Full Height, Full Length
• Sandisk PN: SDFACCMOS-6T40-SF1

==========================================

 

[BackupProphet]

Are these the power hungry ones?

 

[i386]

I think the iodrives need up to 75watt for full performance

 

[YardBouncer]

I only have the 3.2TB one, the 6.4TB is a newer generation type that may well use more than 25W.
@acquacow probably knows, he's an ex Fusion-io guru. I only risked buying one after talking to him about it; making sure that the Server 2008 R2 drivers would work with Windows 7 x64 and stuff like that. He is super helpful.
Must admit I wanted the 6.4TB one for the space and the speed but there's quite a difference between £150 and £400.
At least there is for a Starving Hacker TM like me. I'll probably get one when they've drop to £150 as well.
I've also got my eye on a six pack of 4TB SAS rust drives so doubling my space & speed can wait. 3.2TB of super fast SSD is a crazy amount of space (although I;m sure it'll feel cramped all too soon).

When I installed it I set the power override to 75W because why not? It's in a 16x slot that can be used for a GPU so there is more than enough power (1450W PSU). The 3.2TB one doesn't use the external power connector in any case.

While testing it under load with a stack of copying back and forth I checked with fio-status -a and it seemed to be using under 15W.
I'm sure that would creep up a bit if I was hitting it with more than QD4 but that'll have to wait till I have some VM stuff ready to go.
Not long had my Z820 so still fiddling about with housekeeping stuff, all that tedious installing of software and getting my workspace set up.

C:\Program Files\SanDisk\Fusion ioMemory VSL\3.2.15.1699\Driver\fio-utils>fio-config -p FIO_EXTERNAL_POWER_OVERRIDE *:75

C:\Program Files\SanDisk\Fusion ioMemory VSL\3.2.15.1699\Driver\fio-utils>fio_st
atus -a

Found 1 ioMemory device in this system
Driver version: 3.2.15 build 1699

Adapter: Single Controller Adapter
       Fusion-io ioScale 3.20TB, Product Number:F11-002-3T20-CS-0001, SN:1439D1
5B0, FIO SN:1439D15B0
       ioDrive2 Adapter Controller, PN:PA005064001
       External Power Override: ON
       External Power: NOT connected
       PCIe Bus voltage: avg 11.61V
       PCIe Bus current: avg 0.91A
       PCIe Bus power: avg 10.69W
       PCIe Power limit threshold: 74.75W
       PCIe slot available power: unavailable
       Connected ioMemory modules:
         fct0: Product Number:F11-002-3T20-CS-0001, SN:1439D15B0

fct0    Attached
       ioDrive2 Adapter Controller, Product Number:F11-002-3T20-CS-0001, SN:143
9D15B0
       ioDrive2 Adapter Controller, PN:PA005064001
       SMP(AVR) Versions: App Version: 1.0.21.0, Boot Version: 1.0.6.1
       Located in slot 0 Center of ioDrive2 Adapter Controller SN:1439D15B0
       Powerloss protection: protected
       PCI:41:00.0, Slot Number:4
       Vendor:1aed, Device:2001, Sub vendor:1aed, Sub device:2001
       Firmware v7.1.17, rev 116786 Public
       3200.00 GBytes device size
       Format: v500, 781250000 sectors of 4096 bytes
       PCIe slot available power: 75.00W
       PCIe negotiated link: 4 lanes at 5.0 Gt/sec each, 2000.00 MBytes/sec tot
al
       Internal temperature: 52.17 degC, max 52.66 degC
       Internal voltage: avg 1.02V, max 1.02V
       Aux voltage: avg 2.48V, max 2.48V
       Reserve space status: Healthy; Reserves: 100.00%, warn at 10.00%
       Active media: 100.00%
       Rated PBW: 20.00 PB, 76.57% remaining
       Lifetime data volumes:
          Physical bytes written: 4,686,697,693,180,304
          Physical bytes read   : 4,522,347,279,742,032
       RAM usage:
          Current: 150,739,328 bytes
          Peak   : 150,739,328 bytes
       Contained VSUs:
         fct0: ID:0, UUID:8e28d28c-c036-4b9a-95d0-455daff7e65b

fct0    State: Online, Type: block device
       ID:0, UUID:8e28d28c-c036-4b9a-95d0-455daff7e65b
       3200.00 GBytes device size
       Format: 781250000 sectors of 4096 bytes

 

[ecosse]

Probably the thickest question of all time but this can be used as a drive not just as an acccelerator card correct? Second thickest - this is a full height card? I'm almost hoping by the time someone answers these the cards will be gone!

 

[YardBouncer]

These ones are full height half length cards. Some of the smaller capacity ones are half height half length and come with both brackets if you're lucky.
They are quite 'thicc' cards. Only one slot wide but they use it all.
Particularly if you are running it with another card next to the heatsink face of it you will need to have decent airflow over it. I'm pretty sure @acquacow said they have thermal monitoring & shutdown logic onboard so it won't cook in it's own juices, just throttle then shut down. I'm sure in a normal PC case an 80mm or 100mm fan undervolted to 7V would be plenty. Doesn't need an array of 20k rpm screamers like a pizza box server.

Can very easily be used as a drive, I now have a 3.2TB very fast SSD in a Win 7 x64 machine.
I'm probably criminally underusing it's potential but it works for me. Took 30 mins from opening the parcel to having the drive usable.
The only limitation is you can't use it as a boot drive.

Also the 3.2TB one, despite looking like it uses all 8 PCI-e lanes, in fact only uses 4. So if you're short on slots any PCI-e 2 x4 slot should work (even if you have to get the dremel out to open the back of the slot.

I suspect the x8 mechanical part is mostly for physical support.

The 6.4TB ones do need the full 8x though.

Neither of them have Option ROMs so you can whack them in any slot ie mine is in a 16x '2nd GPU only' slot.
Thats in a Z820 workstation mind you, I've had mixed results trying RAID cards and PCI-e SSDs in the GPU slots of consumer motherboards. If thats the case for you do lots of research.
Very much depends on the manufacturer, phase of the moon, current threat of communism, etc.

Get you one! Even if you have to eat beans on toast for a month.
Theres no other way I know of to get that much SSD storage that cheaply, particularly for machines that don't support NVMe. Plus WAY more IOPs than SATA as well as faster & lower latency. Personally I find IOPs are what makes a drive feel snappy.

 

[acquacow]

I think the iodrives need up to 75watt for full performance

Up to 55w under peak 3GB/sec write workloads for the gen3 cards. The Gen2 cards only use up to 25W.

 

[DouglasteR]

VERY tempting.

I knew coming here was a mistake, AGAIN.

 

[YardBouncer]

Amen brother, I know that feel.

Thought I'd scratched my itch for a while after getting the Fusion-io card but then I found out about bitdeals.tech and all the cheap SAS drives there.

Expected to spend about £75 each for 4TB SAS drives from the same place the Fusion-io card came from; considering I 'need' six of them I thought I'd have to save up my pocket money for a while.

But bitdeals.tech has various 4TB SAS drives for about £40-50 a pop.
Even with $80 P&P from the US to UK thats still quite a bargain.

But I've read a few posts discussing whether bitdeals.tech is legit or not so haven't pulled the trigger on my order yet.
Looking at either ST4000NM0023 or HGST Ultrastar 7K4000.
I've developed a loathing for Seagate drives over the years as most of the family emotional blackmail tech support has been down to their cheap Seagates either suddenly dying or corrupting data.
Thankfully I've got them to use either Samsung SSDs or Toshiba rust drives now.
Nearly losing 5 years worth of photos has a way of convincing people that saving £20 on the cost of a drive is a bad move.

I know Seagate nearline SAS stuff must be decent though since HP, Dell et al rebadge tons of them.

Good thing I like beans on toast...

 

[ecosse]

This post is inherently evil

• I was trying to reduce my server footprint
• I bought a 4u sc847 36 bay chassis to accommodate all the hard drives (low profile case)
• I bought a sound proof cabinet to reduce the noise
• I bought slower fans reduce the noise

...
I bought 2 full height Fusion IO cards to stuff the above up

 

[YardBouncer]

Ha ha!
They upset a few of my plans as well, had intended to RAID 4x SATA SSDs to get myself about 2TB of flash.
Just striped, fragile but wouldn't have mattered as only intended to use it as scratch space and for installing software.
Then I found the Fusion-io thread and realised there was a decent chance I could actually use one without NVMe etc.
I'd already prebought a couple of those Icydock things that let you mount 1x 3.5" and 2x 2.5" drives in a 5.25" bay.
Oh well, they're sure to come in useful for something or another.

Haven't tried to sleep or hibernate my box yet. I think thats going to be the sticking point.
@acquacow reckons it might be OK despite the warnings in the manuals.
I believe his info over theirs since he was on the inside.

Did you get the 3.2TB or 6.4TB ones?
The 6.4TB ones look really tasty speed wise but couldn't quite stretch that far this time.

 

[nikalai]

Greetings,

Is this good to be used for SLOG or L2ARC?

Thank you!

 

[BackupProphet]

You are much better off with Optane as slog. Depending on your use, the 32GB Optane m.2 module may be good enough, the only thing that is bad about the 32GB module is low endurance. But if it can last for 3-5 years you will probably get something even better.
For L2ARC, it really depends on work load, if you have low ARC hit rate then you may benefit from a L2ARC. But for me, 256GB ram is more than enough, I have like 1 % hitrate on my L2ARC with 10TB of data, where 2TB of them is what I guess I access more frequently. So I just ended up removing it.

 

[DouglasteR]

Ugh !

All the small things plotting together and i fell for the 3.2tb:

An unused PCI-E 4x
The eternal hunger for fast storage
Space in the CC (blazing like plasma already)

Guess i will just enjoy it for now.

 

[ecosse]

Did you get the 3.2TB or 6.4TB ones?
The 6.4TB ones look really tasty speed wise but couldn't quite stretch that far this time.

The 3.2TB - I couldnt justify the 6.4TB. I'm probably going to use them as an ESXi datastore - get rid of the hybrid model I have at the moment. Assuming that works but it should do. Saves 16 disks if it works which should lower the noise coming out of that room by a few decibels! To be honest the reduction of noise is more what I want them for than the speed.
Not that I really needed them but hey ho

 

[Wasmachineman_NL]

How well will these drives work as general purpose SSD, ie things like games (lol, asking this on STH), downloads and warm storage? Not interested in booting from them, I already have a 970 Evo.

€190 including VAT is ridiculously cheap for a 3.2 TB PCIe SSD, even if it isn't NVMe. Shipping is killer expensive as I expected though, oh well.

 

[DouglasteR]

How well will these drives work as general purpose SSD, ie things like games (lol, asking this on STH), downloads and warm storage? Not interested in booting from them, I already have a 970 Evo.

€190 including VAT is ridiculously cheap for a 3.2 TB PCIe SSD, even if it isn't NVMe. Shipping is killer expensive as I expected though, oh well.

It´s an amazing drive. You can´t go wrong with it for this intended usage (just like me, steam games etc)

 

[Wasmachineman_NL]

It´s an amazing drive. You can´t go wrong with it for this intended usage (just like me, steam games etc)

Might order one when I get my money later this month, it's not like I absolutely need more storage.

No cables needed is a nice plus too. Does anyone know if these drives are picky with PCIe slots? My Crosshair VII has a PCIe 2.0 X8 port from the X470 chipset which seems fit for this purpose.

And how do these drives with Windows 7?

 

[DouglasteR]

Might order one when I get my money later this month, it's not like I absolutely need more storage.

No cables needed is a nice plus too. Does anyone know if these drives are picky with PCIe slots? My Crosshair VII has a PCIe 2.0 X8 port from the X470 chipset which seems fit for this purpose.

And how do these drives with Windows 7?

PCIe thru the chipset is generally slower, but not by much.

I don´t see a reason why it wouldn´t work.

 

[alex_stief]

Oh ffs, there goes the rest of my toy budget for 2019...
Do these require a significant amount of airflow to operate? I.e. server-grade fans or will they work in a quiet workstation if I zip-tie a fan to it? The manual states something about 300LFM.