Facebook, are you listening? Fusion-io chucks 6.4TB 'Atomic' flash kit at world

PCIe-card flasher Fusion-io has a new piece of ioMemory hardware and is calling it the Atomic Series.

This third-generation architecture product stores up to 6.4TB. The existing ioScale card stores 3.2TB of data. That’s made using 2Xnm class MLC NAND (29-20nm). Fusion says the new card is faster, maybe twice as fast as the ioScale product.

There are two products:

• PX600 for the fastest speed,
• • 1TB, 1.3TB, 2.6TB and 5.2TB capacities
  • 2.7GB/sec and up to 2.2GB/sec read/write bandwidth
  • to 330,000/375,000 random read/write IOPS (4K)
  • 92µ/15µ read/write latency
  • 12, 16, 32 and 64 PB written endurance for 1TB, 1.3TB, 2.6TB and 5.2TB models
  • Standard height, half-length card
• SX300 for scale-out architectures and hyperscale environments.
• • 1TB, 1.3TB, 3.2B and 6.4TB capacities
  • 2.6GB/sec and up to 1.2GB/sec read/write bandwidth
  • to 215,000/300,000 random read/write IOPS (4K)
  • 92µ/15µ read/write latency
  • 4, 5.5, 11 and 22 PB written endurance for 1TB, 1.3TB, 2.6TB and 5.2TB models
  • Standard height, half-length card

Atomic Series 3.2TB

For comparison a 3.2TB ioScale product has this performance profile:

• 115,000/243,000 random read/write IOPS (4k)
• 1.5/1.3GB/sec sequential read/write bandwidth
• 92μs read, 19μs write latency
• PCIe 2.0 x4 interface

The hardware uses a PCIe 2.0 x8 interface and has self-healing features. Fusion-io says the architecture is simplified and the products offer "the highest transaction rate per gigabyte for everything from read intensive workflows to mixed workloads".

Fusion-io positioning schematic for Atomic Series products

In effect the Atomic product duo replace both the ioSCale and ioDrive II products. This looks like a solid announcement which should help Fusion-io grow its business. We'll have to wait and see how its competitors; Intel, WD's HGST, Micron and Seagate respond.

With up to 6.4TB of capacity then, given affordability concerns are met, we could be seeing the gradual ending of disk use on servers needing fast access to data.

There is a five-year warranty for the PX600 and a 3-year one for the SX300. The Atomic Series products are available from Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM and Supermicro, also from Fusion’s certified resellers.

There's no word on whether Facebook and Apple have had a change of heart on hardware purchase orders. ®