Performance
Our testbench for this analysis included an Intel Q9550 @ 2.83GHz, MSI P7N Diamond, 8GB Corsair DDR2-8500 RAM and a GeForce 7600GS. To make sure the maximum speed was available to the ioDrive, it was inserted in the first PCI-E x16 slot, the graphics card inserted in the second. Driver revision 1.25.73 was used, in combination with firmware 21460.
To illustrate just how much of a jump from traditional media the ioDrive is, we compared it against a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB mechanical drive and an Intel X25-E 32GB solid-state drive in Windows Server 2008 64-bit.
First up, the single user test CrystalDiskMark, which allows us to test sequential reads and writes, as well as 512K and 4K random reads and writes. We set it to five tests, and transferred 1GB to all the competing drives.
The mechanical drive gets slaughtered, most of all in the 4K random stakes, invisible on this chart. The Barracuda scored 0.628MBps in reads, and 1.3MBps in writes.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)
On average, the ioDrive is three times faster on sequential reads and writes than the Intel SSD, and massively increases the random reads and writes. At this stage you'll notice that the different modes of the ioDrive make no appreciable difference and really are within margin of error — however, they do make a giant impact in other areas, which we'll investigate later. First, let's hit it up with an Iometer test for multi-user access stats, using the "file server" set of parameters as outlined by Intel. Four workers were set going with varying queue depths for a period of 10 minutes.
IOPs show the mechanical drive being decimated — it peaked at 105.37IOPs.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)
How the above translates into MBps — the mechanical just managing to break 1MBps, compared to the Fusion's 291.51MBps. (Credit: CBS Interactive)
Response times are blisteringly fast for the SSDs — the ioDrive only showing its advantage over the Intel X-25E when things get really heavy. (Credit: CBS Interactive)
Writes are always slower. Here the mechanical posts a maximum of 26.6IOPs. (Credit: CBS Interactive)
The same, but in MBps. The mechanical can't even manage 0.3MBps (Credit: CBS Interactive)
Response times are typically longer for writes as well. (Credit: CBS Interactive)
In a multi-user situation the ioDrive absolutely dominates, and it's here where the different speed modes and Fusion-io's aggressive write strategy become apparent. If you have a heavily embattled server, this could go quite a long way to fixing your concerns.
Conclusion
The Fusion-io ioDrive is in a performance field of its own. Home users are much better off RAIDing a few SSDs together; however, for those running servers that need extra throughput now, the Fusion-io represents an expensive, but justifiable saviour.
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