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

[thingy2098]

That is correct, although if the seller you bought from didn't guarantee a certain amount of write endurance you might have an uphill battle on that front as it still works as expected.

It's like buying a used hard drive, unless explicitly stated, there's generally no guarantee that there aren't some reallocated sectors, or situations like I have with a few of my drives, load/unload cycles that have greatly exceeded their rating. Many consumer drives are only rated in the datasheet for 300,000; I have a few with over 1.2 million that still work great and pass all their S.M.A.R.T tests, although they clearly are living on borrowed time.

 

[philfromqueens]

The seller on ebay had the generic description, aka not descriptive of the condition at all just had the model number and stated it was in refurbished condition. But other users (from r/buildapcsales) who had bought from this seller had reported lifespans of 70%+ so I feel a bit gypped. Anyways, I just plan on using it for game storage at home so Im sure I wont put much wear and tear on the drive (if the seller refues an exchange).

 

[acquacow]

There's also zero way for any 3rd party folks to "refurbish" an ioDrive, other than to maybe clean the contacts, which wouldn't really be an issue.

If you want to refurb NAND wafers, you need to physically bake the chips and get them hot to get them to release any stored electrons and get some wear life back.

 

[philfromqueens]

i contacted the seller and he said he had an issue with his supplier and that this wasnt an isolated incident. He refunded me fully and let me keep the drive. so thats pretty cool. I was just planning on using it to store games that are easily replaceable if the drive craps out so nbd.

 

[YardBouncer]

If you want to refurb NAND wafers, you need to physically bake the chips and get them hot to get them to release any stored electrons and get some wear life back.

Now that is REALLY interesting! I don't suppose you have any idea of what that temp range is?

I'm thinking mainly in terms of solder melting point, capacitor popcorning and other exciting phenomena like that.
If it requires desoldering the NAND first I suspect thats a bridge too far for me as far as PC SSDs go.
I don't mind SMD rework and will even reball BGAs if I absolutely have to so it's good to know it can be done if it must be.

But I work with a lot of industrial control gear for CNCs, PLCs and the like. A lot of it uses rather old electronics.
As in Z80, 80186, 486s.

That NAND trick has the potential to get me out of a jam in the future - if something is banjaxed anyway I might as well have a go. Some of those controller boards, if you can actually find one, can cost tens of grand and might only last a week.

The heavy iron lasts for many decades and most of the electronics will last just as long. PSUs need caps replacing of course but most of the silicon lasts a lot longer than newer stuff due to the size of the gates.

Modern stuff with <10 nm feature size and logic level swings of a fraction of a volt wears out very quickly due to electron migration, cosmic ray strikes, manufacturing tolerances, stuff like that.

I know that some of the highest astronomical observatories in the world like the ones in Chile have to pay serious attention to that stuff these days.
My understanding is they may end up having to tunnel deep into the rock to provide protection for their new server farms.
They sat test servers in the observatories just doing stuff like calculating pi and running memtest - they barely lasted a month. The RAM started dying long before a month then the CPUs died.

By comparison a Z80 uses 4,000 nm features and a full 5V swing.
Those aren't an issue but the solid state storage they write logs and calibration stuff to is. It’s usually primitive flash or bubble memory which is where the baking trick might be useful. It usually only holds a few kb but its a very very important few kb.

Their software lives on 2708 type ROMs. My first move when I became responsible for them was to pull the ROMs and make copies.

Many thanks @acquacow, you done learned me some good stuff once again.

If you're ever in England I owe you supper and a pint.

 

[YardBouncer]

By the way @acquacow there's something I've been wondering about re my Fusion-IO card.

My main OS is Win7 Pro x64. It has obviously just gone EOL and even though I'll have access to the extended support patches till 2023 I'm going to set up another SSD with a Win 10 Pro x64 install on the same machine. Revodrive 3x2 480Gb for Win 7 and a 1TB SATA SSD on a motherboard port for Win 10, in case that makes any difference.
Win 10 probably won't have drivers for the Revodrive installed so won't be able to see it.

I know that a lot of the magic sauce is in the card's drivers. It seems that the same drivers work under Win 10 x64 (although I haven't tried it yet) but my concern is preserving state between driver sets.

If I write something to the card from Win 7 then reboot into Win 10 and start reading and writing from there is there any chance of a consistency problem?
Assuming an orderly shutdown does the driver write all it's mapping stuff etc to the actual Fusion-IO card its own self (where it will obviously be available to any other OS) or does it use local storage in the OS (which could be problematic)?

I'd really like to be able to use the card for mutual storage but I could do without any exciting surprises.
I imagine writing to the card, hibernating that OS to disc, then starting the other and doing the same thing would be incredibly stupid.

Thanks for any insight you may be able to offer.

 

[acquacow]

Trash the RevoDrive unless you really don't care about your data.

As far as win7/10 swaps, as long as you have the driver installed on both, no issues with an ioDrive and swapping back and forth.
There's no DRAM cache on the ioDrive, writes are committed immediately.

The drive will just present itself as a block device and windows will see the partitions/NTFS and will just mount it as it should.

-- Dave

 

[YardBouncer]

Trash the RevoDrive unless you really don't care about your data.

Yeah, I know they're nowhere near the same ballpark. I got it in a way that didn't really cost me anything so I'm using it for now because its loads faster than SATA3 and my Ivy Bridge z820 is just too old to use NVMe boot devices painlessly.
Theres not much on there that can't be easily replaced; just the OS and software. Any work stuff gets a copy shunted off to network storage every 15 mins and the drive gets an incremental backup once a day with a full backup less frequently.
First sign of any trouble with the Revodrive and its out of there; I'll put up with a slower SATA3 SSD till I get a much newer Z box with fully modern IO support.

That may seem a little excessive but I nearly lost everything due to a nasty hardware failure many years ago. I'm ultra paranoid about data loss now even though that failure was on a normal PC and I only use Xeon/ECC workstations now. Once bitten and all that.

Thats great news about the dual boot. I suspected it might work that way but I wanted to be sure before sinking time into getting it all set up.

Many thanks for the help.

 

[acquacow]

Heh, I lost data once... in 2001.

I was in my college dorm, I had brought over a 6-disk 100GB external Sun scsi array and raid card to my dorm while I moved some data around.

I made a big 100GB raid0 and copied my data to it so that I could re-partition my other disks in my PC.

Not 20mins after I wiped my desktop, my buddy came over to my dorm to see what was going on and pointed at the array and promptly yanked out a disk asking "is this hot-swappable?!"

Yeah... never got that array re-assembled

 

[SRussell]

Heh, I lost data once... in 2001.

Not 20mins after I wiped my desktop, my buddy came over to my dorm to see what was going on and pointed at the array and promptly yanked out a disk asking "is this hot-swappable?!"

Yeah... never got that array re-assembled

And that is the easy way to make new friends.

 

[YardBouncer]

Ooof.

You never forget an experience like that.
Pain teaches lessons words never can.

If only the words had preceded the action. There's about half a dozen moments in my life I wish I could've just paused and rewound a few seconds. Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide etc) called a moment like that a 'floormat'; that feeling you get when you realise you selected the wrong drive to format.

You can lecture people about backups till you're blue in the face but its something everyone has to go through before they take it seriously.

As my drives get old or obsolete due to size I use them as offsite backups. Every member of my family and a lot of my friends have a shoebox full of bubblewrapped old drives that they are expected to defend with their lives.

As for storing my data in The Clown? That's just someone else's computer. Bugger that.

 

[BigBrain]

Hey so I recently grabbed the 3.2tb io scale drive to use. I have tried installing all the versions that are available on San disks website and still cannot get the card to show. I have also tried using Dell's drivers as well and no luck. Card lights up when computer is powered on so don't think it is a faulty card. Would very much appreciate some help.

System: Windows 10 64 bit ver 1903
CPU:8700k
RAM:16GB
MOBO: MSI z370 gaming m5
Drives: Sata SSD & 2 Harddrives

Fusion card that I bought: SuperMicro Fusion ioScale F11-002-3T20-CS-0001 PCI-E 3.20TB MLC SSD | eBay
I have tried all driver versions for IO-Scale of of sandisks and dells websites. After every installation I reboot my computer. When entering fio-status -a into an elevated command prompt I get the message "fio-status requires the driver to be loaded on this platform. Exiting." It happens with every driver version that is available.

 

[YardBouncer]

Good job on buying one of the cards; you won't regret it (once you get it going of course).

When you ask a question like that its always best to provide as much information as possible.

Things like:
OS and version, x86 or x84, CPU, RAM, other drives/cards installed, any other issues with the machine/OS, etc, etc.

Things you've tried before, attempted driver version, card's brand and firmware version (ie is it a 'pure' Fusion-IO card or a Dell or HP one), all that stuff.
Further up the thread theres a lot of useful info about getting them going.

If you edit your question and add the info I mentioned you'll make it much easier for people to help you.

 

[BigBrain]

Good job on buying one of the cards; you won't regret it (once you get it going of course).

When you ask a question like that its always best to provide as much information as possible.

Things like:
OS and version, x86 or x84, CPU, RAM, other drives/cards installed, any other issues with the machine/OS, etc, etc.

Things you've tried before, attempted driver version, card's brand and firmware version (ie is it a 'pure' Fusion-IO card or a Dell or HP one), all that stuff.
Further up the thread theres a lot of useful info about getting them going.

If you edit your question and add the info I mentioned you'll make it much easier for people to help you.

Info added

 

[YardBouncer]

Would you mind posting the fio-status -a output?

It should work with Win 10 although I've only tried with 7 x64 so far.
The firmware version of the card needs to match the driver, you may have to flash the firmware first.

What slot is it in?
Since it's a gaming motherboard have you made sure non-GPU cards are compatible with that slot?
Some SLI type gaming boards use a PCIe switch to get more lanes than the CPU will support; that can cause issues too.

If theres an option for it in your BIOS turn off any sort of option ROM download for that slot; since it's not a bootable card its not needed and can only cause problems.
I had an issue once with a RAID card that was greatly helped by turning that option off for the relevant slot.

 

[BigBrain]

Would you mind posting the fio-status -a output?

It should work with Win 10 although I've only tried with 7 x64 so far.
The firmware version of the card needs to match the driver, you may have to flash the firmware first.

What slot is it in?
Since it's a gaming motherboard have you made sure non-GPU cards are compatible with that slot?
Some SLI type gaming boards use a PCIe switch to get more lanes than the CPU will support; that can cause issues too.

If theres an option for it in your BIOS turn off any sort of option ROM download for that slot; since it's not a bootable card its not needed and can only cause problems.
I had an issue once with a RAID card that was greatly helped by turning that option off for the relevant slot.

Attached is the output of fio-status -a as well as the driver I currently have installed. I have downloaded version 3.2.15 currently installed. However I have installed 3.2.14 , 3.2.11, 3.2.10, 3.2.8, 3.2.6, 3.2.4, 3.2.3, 3.2.2 and get the same output as shown in the powershell attachment. Don't I need to see the card first before I can upgrade the firmware? As well the pcie slot will work with non gpu cards. Also in my bios settings I have not seen any options for a pcie switch or ROM download option for that slot.

 

[YardBouncer]

Ah, didn't realise it couldn't actually see the card at all.
You say the white LED is smoothly pulsing?

Got any other cards to try in that slot, other slots to try the card in, or another PC to experiment with (preferably a workstation or server)?
Might be worth having a play with a USB bootable Linux image.
That way you don't disturb your main OS and can maybe get a hint as to whether it's a software or hardware/firmware/BIOS level issue.

I'm afraid I'm not certain whats going on, may have to wait for acquacow to weigh in; he knows these cards inside out.

EDIT: any sign of it when you're in your BIOS or UEFI setup? Even if its just seeing it as an unknown card.

 

[BigBrain]

No sign of the card in the bios at all. Yes the white led is smoothly pulsing. Tried throwing it in my other slots with no luck.

 

[YardBouncer]

Bummer.

Personally I'd make sure the card is sound by trying it in another machine.
You definitely need to make sure the card is OK first of all.

Got an auld knacker lying about? Some old C2D or even a Celeron?
If not would recommend trying it in a mate's machine.
Its often easy to get free or super cheap machines from skips (dumpsters), charity shops, Craigs List etc.

Worst comes to worst you could chuck a small amount of money to a PC repair shop in exchange for half an hour on their Test Pig. Every PC shop has a Test Pig, even if they don't call it that. Usually a motherboard nailed to the wall with all it's unmentionables hanging out; meant for just this sort of thing.
Or try the same thing at your work's IT section, they'll probably think the card is pretty cool so you can entice them that way as well as outright bribery ie snacks & drinks etc.

As mentioned above I'd try booting from a Linux live CD image (much quicker if you use a USB stick).
I know little of Linux but I do recall that the most recent kernels have issues so I'd try a version a couple of years old maybe. There is talk upthread that mentions versions that definitely work.

Hopefully acquacow will soon arrive in a flash of fire and instantly know what's happening.
He is a Left-Pondian like you; I'm a Right-Pondian and will be crashing out soon I'm afraid.
I just happened to get home and see the thread alert whilst eating supper.
Its about 0100 here whereas its ~1900 for you fellahs so he might be about soon.

 

[BigBrain]

Bummer.

Personally I'd make sure the card is sound by trying it in another machine.
You definitely need to make sure the card is OK first of all.

Got an auld knacker lying about? Some old C2D or even a Celeron?
If not would recommend trying it in a mate's machine.
Its often easy to get free or super cheap machines from skips (dumpsters), charity shops, Craigs List etc.

Worst comes to worst you could chuck a small amount of money to a PC repair shop in exchange for half an hour on their Test Pig. Every PC shop has a Test Pig, even if they don't call it that. Usually a motherboard nailed to the wall with all it's unmentionables hanging out; meant for just this sort of thing.
Or try the same thing at your work's IT section, they'll probably think the card is pretty cool so you can entice them that way as well as outright bribery ie snacks & drinks etc.

As mentioned above I'd try booting from a Linux live CD image (much quicker if you use a USB stick).
I know little of Linux but I do recall that the most recent kernels have issues so I'd try a version a couple of years old maybe. There is talk upthread that mentions versions that definitely work.

Hopefully acquacow will soon arrive in a flash of fire and instantly know what's happening.
He is a Left-Pondian like you; I'm a Right-Pondian and will be crashing out soon I'm afraid.
I just happened to get home and see the thread alert whilst eating supper.
Its about 0100 here whereas its ~1900 for you fellahs so he might be about soon.

Thanks for trying. Probably what I'll do is take one of my spare harddrives and load up windows 7 and see if I can get it to work. In the meantime I will message the seller.