look at this baby its a SAN card that you install in your computer in a pci-e 4x slot. they come in 80, 160 or 320 GB capacities and are as fast as DRAM, except its non-volatile. Imagine installing your windows and applications on this baby and booting from it. Read speed : 700 MB/s Write speed: 600 MB/s Access Latency : 50µs Read 40µs Write in other words, its 1000 times faster than the HD you have in your computer at this moment. YES, even you with those high end 15krpm SCSI HDs this is sick sick sick Those of you who insist on getting the best computer there is and that are not adhering to the ''500$ dell computer is enough for trading'' school, get one! (although i agree for most peeps a normal computer does the job. Very few people actually need a powerhouse for trading. running ninja trader works well on a 4 year old computer with 1gb ram) www.fusion-io.com --> company website
Well, right now it's not a bootable device, so a regular drive is still needed. When it becomes more mainstream, I'd imagine the dells/HP's of the world will just incorporate these devices on the motherboard or offer different sizes when you configure your pc when purchasing.
about the bootable device : they mention "This feature will not be included until Q3 2008" Most likely via a simple firmware update.
Intel Quad Core QX9650 Extreme "Yorkfield" 4 x 3.00Ghz 12Mb Cache 1333 FSB Quad Core Processor £616.88 inc vat Antec P190 Super Mid Tower Extended ATX Performance Case (Black) £194.64 inc vat Corsair 2GB DDR3 Dominator 1800C7DF Twin3X (2x1GB) £270.24 inc VAT *2 540 Western Digital VelociRaptor 300Gb 16Mb Cache Hard Disk Drive Serial ATA <4.2ms 10,000rpm £225.59 inc vat Novatech GeForce 9600GT Sonic SLI 1024MB 120 pounds times 2 equals 240 Asus Strike II Formula nVidia 780i DDR2, SATA II Raid, Dual GB LAN, Firewire Motherboard £182.35 inc vat This is a pretty neat piece of hardware...
Yes having looked at the specs a little bit it could actually replace the hard disk component with something that would be ultra competitive with anything available.
The ioDrive the OP refers to isn't what most people would call a SAN card -- it's a card with a bunch of flash memory on it, touted as a "replacement for a SAN", which of course is only true if the SAN is relatively small. Moreover, it may have a limited lifespan, as flash wears out (this depends largely on how you use it, "wear-levelling" algorithms notwithstanding). That said, if you needed that kind of speed and don't care about the cost, then it might be worth it. It seems that flash drives, eventually, will become common, cheap, and reliable.
I use an iRam drive, which is quite similar to the one posted. One thing to note is that the speed improvement depends upon the software. There is hardly any noticeable improvement with something like TradeStation; however, my higher end apps like X-Trader run better.