Fusion-io cards require matching firmware and drivers. This is different in many ways to how NVMe PCIe drives behave but it is something to remember with the ioDrive series. To ensure you have proper firmware first create the following folder and place firmware (with ffff extension) in there. A Linux kernel module, or device driver, for Fusion-io flash storage devices has not yet been provided under an Open Source license, such as the GPL, to enable Red Hat to distribute it with the Linux Kernel. Therefore, it must be obtained as a third-party driver from the vendor for use within Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise.

1. Fusion-io called their architecture ioMemory. It was announced at the DEMO conference in 2007, and software called ioSAN was shown in 2008. In March 2009, Hewlett-Packard announced the HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator adaptation of Fusion-io technology specifically for HP BladeSystem C-Series servers.
2. Follow the instructions based on the version of your driver. Building the Fusion-io Drivers From Source. To view a step-by-step screencast of this process, click here. Before beginning, download the ioDrive driver source rpm for RHEL from the Dell Fusion-io support site to a temporary directory. At minimum, you’ll need the latest version of.
3. VMware ESXi drivers for the Fusion-io VSL 3.2.6 release have obtained VMware certification and are available This now includes support for ESXi 5.5. Log in to Reply Joe on December 14, 2013 at 7:50 am said.

Installing the Fusion-io Card Refer to the Owner's Manual for your PowerEdge server for instructions on installing a PCIe at the Dell Product Support site. To determine the optimal PCIe slot to install the card in refer to the - PowerEdge Servers Slot Support Matrix. Navigate to Dell ioDrive Support Center. Fussion IO Driver for Windows 7 (64-bit), Windows 8.1 (64-bit) - ThinkStation P500.

Just like SSDs, a Fusion-io ioDrive uses flash memory chips in the background to store data. If you want to use a previously used ioDrive for a new purpose, you can perform a low-level format of the ioDrive before creating the file system. This increases the overall possible performance for further operation. But by doing so, all data of the ioDrive will be lost. With SSDs you have similar options - please see SSD Secure Erase.

fio-detach

Before you perform a low-level format, you must release the corresponding device using fio-detach. The respective device name can be identified as fio-status:

fio-format

Now you can run fio-format:

fio-attach

Then you can reattach the device again:

Device is Activated

The device is now activated. You can see the name of the block device in fio-status or /proc/partitions (in this case, the device /dev/fioa):

Additional Information

• Tuning Techniques for Writes (Fusion-io Knowledge Base)

As a prequel to my upcoming FusionIO performance benchmarking articles I thought I would quickly demonstrate how easy it is to install the FusionIO drivers for VMware ESXi.

First you need to download the drivers from https://support.fusionio.com/downloads , you will need to register to access the support website.

Once you login you need to click the Downloads button and you will see the “Identify Product” section appear similar to the below. Select “IODrive2” , The suitable VMware ESXi version, and for option 3, the latest version.

Then you should see the below available downloads.

The file you need is the “Fusion-IO_libvsl-offline-bundle-%version%” file which is under “Utilities”.

Download the file and extract the zip file, and you should see similar to the below.

Now we need to either copy the vib file to a datastore OR use something like WinSCP to copy the file to the host.

The easiest way in my opinion is to copy the file to a datastore via vSphere client.

To do this, goto the “configuration” tab for your ESXi host/s , select “storage” under the “Hardware” section, then select your datastore.

Now right click the datastore and select “Browse Datastore”

Once in your datastore, click this icon and you will see the below appear.

Select the VIB file and press “Open”

The file should now upload, and you will see a progress window like the below.

Once the file is in your datastore, make note of the path assuming you didn’t use the root of the datastore.

Now click “Security Profile” under the “Software” section (see below).

Now click “Properties” for the “Firewall” and you will see the below appear.

Ensure “SSH Server” is ticked like the above and press Ok.

Your now ready to SSH to your ESXi host using a program such as PuTTY.

Open PuTTY, enter the IP or hostname for your ESXi host, select SSH (Port 22) and press Connect.

You will be prompted for credentials, I am using “root” in this example.

After entering your credentials, you should see the below screen.

Now we use “esxcli” to install the VIB by using the following command

“esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/*DATASTORENAME*/Fusionio_bootbank_block-iomemory-vsl_3.1.5.126-1OEM.500.0.0.472560.vib”

Once Installed, you should see something similar to the below.

Now to verify the driver has installed, we can use the “esxcli software vib list” command which should give us a result similar to the below.

Now if the driver appears like the above, reboot your host.

Once you have rebooted, SSH back to your host, and we now need to format the FusionIO card.

To do this use the below command.

Now you should be able to open the vSphere client, select your host and goto the configuration tab, Select “Storage Adapters” and you should see the FusionIO card show up like the below.

Dell Fusion Io Drivers Windows 10

Now you can return to the “Storage” menu and use “add Storage” too format the card with VMFS.

Fusion Io Singapore

Now your ready to use your FusionIO card.