Fusion-IO managed to take the concept of Solid State Drive to a whole new level through the launch of their new ioDrive able to reach the highest levels of performance ever delivered by a SSD. The new Fusion-IO product does not resemble a standard SSD, either in form or in delivered speed, which is stated to reach 800MB/s for read operations (about four times more speed than the fastest SATA SSD on the market) and about 680MB/s for write. The drive is also able to handle 100,000 random IOPS.

What makes this drive so different and, at the same time, fast, is the fact that it rather resembles a RAM drive than a SSD. And there is no SATA or PATA interface to be used, instead the ioDrive connects through PCI Express x4, which adds the performance boost. We already know that SSDs use NAND flash memory chips instead of mechanical parts, fact that generated their name, and the new Fusion-IO drive also uses SLC NAND flash memory circuits.

“People experienced in the field of SSD will note that performance of an SSD can vary depending on the controller you plug it into (such as Intel Matrix, or the controller found on an Nvidia chipset motherboard), but the ioDrive IS its own controller... and drive, yielding high performance regardless of the system you plug it into.”

According to Fusion-IO, the ioDrive is the world's fastest Solid State Drive. From what we've seen reading the review the guys from DV Nation wrote, there will hardly be complaints about the performance the drive can deliver. The only catch with this product is the fact that it can only be used on 64-bit machines and users cannot boot from it. Yet, the company said that future firmware updates would fix this problems.

Fusion-IO already made the ioDrive available. It has been designed mainly for server usage, comes in 80GB and 160GB flavors and will cost about $2,649 and $4,899, respectively. Those interested in the product can take a look at it here.