Syntax

fio-format [options] <device>

where <device> is the name of the device node (/dev/fctx), where x indicates the card number: 0, 1, 2, and so on. For example, /dev/fct0 indicates the first IO Accelerator installed on the system.

Options

NOTE: ESX only supports 512 byte sector sizes for use in VMDKs. Do not format your IO Accelerator device with any other sector size if you plan to use VMDKs. If you are passing the device through to a VM using PCI pass-through, then the guest VM can use any sector size appropriate for the guest operating system. In this case, formatting is performed on the guest system.

Option

Description

 

 

-b <size BK>

Sets the block (sector) size, in bytes or KiBytes (base 2). The default is 512 bytes. For

 

example: -b 512B or -b 4K (B in 512B is optional).

-f

Forces the format size, bypassing normal checks and warnings. This option might be

 

needed in rare situations when the fio-formatcommand does not proceed properly.

 

(The Are you sure? prompt still appears unless you use the -yoption.)

-q

Quiet mode: Disables the display of the progress-percentage indicator.

-s <size

Sets the device capacity as a specific size (in TB, GB, or MB) or as a percentage of the

BKMGT%>

advertised capacity:

 

• T—The number of terabytes (TB) to format

 

• G—The number of gigabytes (GB) to format

 

• M—The number of megabytes (MB) to format

 

• %—The percentage, such as 70% (the percent sign must be included)

 

 

-o <size

Over-formats the device size to greater than the advertised capacity, where the maximum

BKMGT%>

size equals the maximum physical capacity. If a percentage is used, it corresponds to the

 

maximum physical capacity of the device. Size is required for the -ooption. For size

 

indicator descriptions, see the previously described -soption.

-r

Enables fast rescan on unclean shutdowns at the cost of some capacity.

-y

Auto-answers yes to all queries from the application, bypassing prompts.

You must re-attach the driver to use the IO Accelerator. For more information, see "fio-attach (on page 29)."

fio-pci-check

The fio-pci-checkutility is only supported on ESX. If you run it on an ESXi host, it will print the following message:

This utility is not supported on ESXi.

Description

The fio-pci-checkutility checks for errors on the PCI bus tree, specifically for IO Accelerator devices. This utility displays the current status of each IO Accelerator device. It also prints the standard PCIe error information and resets the state.

It is normal to see as many as five errors when fio-pci-checkis initially run. Subsequent runs should reveal only one or two errors during several hours of operation.

Syntax

Utilities 33