Fusion-IO.... are they the next big thing?

Fusion-IO is here but can they revolutionized the storage market? Their product named ioDrive is a PCI-E X4 (PCI Express) cards with NAND flash chips on it. This is a great technology as the disks is now closer to the CPU processor, where the traditional HBA sits in. Don't you already feel excited about it?

Traditional Architecture
CPU -> PCI-E Bus -> SCSI/SATA HBA -> Raid Controller -> Disks

Fusion-IO Architecture
CPU -> PCI-E Bus -> ioDrive


SSD itself is a great technology, it has no moving parts, no spinning drive heads, no noise and produce very little heat. But......

SSD has a lifespan, SSD can wears out. According to Fusion ioDrive specsheet, 80GB model have wear levelling of 24 years, 160GB model have wear levelling of 48 years and 320GB model have wear levelling of 16 years. It currently also only supports RHEL, SLES and Windows. The ioDrive is also NOT BOOTABLE device.

Well, at least Fusion IO has a great start. I am keeping my eyes on this company.

Comments are welcome.