IO Accelerator

Summary

The IO Accelerator (full name HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator) is a type of Solid-state drive offered in a mezzanine card form factor for HP's BladeSystem c-Class servers.

Specifications

The adapter connects to the blade server using a PCI Express x4 link, uses less than 9 watts, has bandwidth up to 800 MB/s and latency as low as 50 microseconds.

Since this is a Type-1 mezzanine card, the user can install up to 2 in a half-height blade server such as the BL460c, and up to 3 can be installed in a full-height blade server like the BL685c.

Architecture

The IO Accelerator contains technology obtained from the startup company Fusion-io. HP is the first company to create a product based on Fusion-io's ioMemory architecture, and is also the first to make it available to blade servers.

The adapter combines NAND flash memory (either SLC or MLC) with a custom controller chip that interfaces directly to the PCI Express fabric of the server. The card has 25 channels of NAND Flash that are accessed in parallel.

Models

The IO Accelerator is initially offered in capacities of 80GB, 160GB, and 320GB. The 320GB model uses MLC NAND, whereas the other models use SLC NAND.

Limitations

The IO Accelerator currently cannot be used to boot the server. Drivers are only available for Linux and Windows. Drivers only work on 64-bit operating systems (32-bit is not supported).

See also

• Solid State disk
• BladeSystem