Some FAQs are listed below:
Doesn't NAND flash have a write limit? How does that effect the lifetime of the ioDrive?
NAND flash has a limit on the number of writes that can be done to an individual cell. The particular limit depends on the type of flash used. For Single Level Cell (SLC) NAND, the limit exceeds 100,000 writes to a cell, whereas for Multi Level Cell (MLC) NAND, it is on the order of 10,000 writes. Hence, in order to exceed the limit of a single 80GB ioDrive, you would have to write almost 80PB (Petabytes) of data. Streaming data at 800MB/s to the card, it would take you 3.4 years of writing data non-stop to exceed the SLC limit.
How does the data reliability of the ioDrive compare to a traditional hard disk drive?
The ioDrive is far more reliable than a hard disk drive as it relates to data reliability. In both hard disk drives and ioDrives, Error Correcting Codes (ECC) are used to ensure that any minor failure doesn't cause data loss. Fusion-io uses strong ECC algorithms to ensure the safety of your data.
Is the ioDrive prone to catastrophic failures similar to a hard disk drive?
Most catastrophic failures in hard disk drives are the result of mechanical failures, causing total data loss. Because the ioDrive has no moving parts, it isn't subject to the same mechanical failures of traditional hard disk drives. When a NAND chip on an ioDrive begins to fail, the data is simply written to an adjacent NAND chip. The result is zero data loss with only slight reduction in overall ioDrive storage capacity. Furthermore, the ioDrive's RAID capabilities protects from controller or other major (but extremely rare) types of failures.
Is it possible to RAID multiple ioDrives?
To the host operating system an ioDrive appears as a normal hard disk drive, so users are able to leverage any software RAID solution that uses the host operating system's native drivers. The operating systems volume manager performs the RAID function.
How does an ioDrive's RAID functionality compare to a traditional disk-based RAID solution?
The ioDrive significantly outperforms the highest performance hardware-based RAID controller on the market.
Does the ioDrive require a RAID controller?
The ioDrive does not need a RAID controller as it is directly connected to the system PCIe bus. Multiple ioDrives can be configured using the host operating system's logical volume management to do RAID 0, 1, 5 etc. between ioDrives. Such an implementation is much faster than using hardware-level RAID controllers.
Does the ioDrive require a back-up power supply to protect from power outages?
The ioDrive uses non-volatile NAND flash as its storage medium. Hence, when data is stored in the NAND chip, it is guaranteed persistent.
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