•Sufficient RAM to operate—The amount of RAM that the driver requires to manage the NAND flash varies according to the block size you select when formatting the device (filesystem format, not low-level format). For a virtual machine using an IO Accelerator directly (using PCI pass-through), consult the user guide for the installed operating system. The following table lists the amount of RAM required per 100GB of storage space, using various block sizes. The amount of RAM used in driver version 3.0 is significantly less than the amount used in version 1.2.x.

Average block size

RAM usage for each 80

RAM usage for each 100

Minimum system RAM

(bytes)

GB IO Accelerator

GB IO Accelerator

requirement for 320 GB

 

(Megabytes)

(Megabytes)

MezzIO Accelerator*

 

 

 

 

8,192

250

280

1 GB

4,096

400

530

1.6 GB

2,048

750

1,030

3 GB

1,024

1,450

2,000

5.8 GB

512

2,850

3,970

11.4 GB

Average block size

Minimum system RAM

Minimum system RAM

Minimum system RAM

(bytes)

requirement for 640 GB

requirement for 785 GB

requirement for 1.2 TB

 

MezzIO Accelerator*

MezzIO Accelerator*

MezzIO Accelerator*

 

 

 

 

8,192

2 GB

2.2 GB

3.4 GB

4,096

3.2 GB

4.2 GB

6.4 GB

2,048

6 GB

8.1 GB

12.4 GB

1,024

11.6 GB

15.7 GB

24 GB

512

22.8 GB

31.2 GB

47.6 GB

*For IO Accelerator use only. Additional RAM is needed for system operating system and applications.

HP PCIe IO Accelerator Duo requirements

In addition to the IO Accelerator cooling and RAM requirements listed in the previous table, the IO Accelerator Duo requires at least:

•A PCIe Gen1 x8 slot or a PCIe Gen2 x4 slot

•A minimum of a full-height, half-length slot with a x8 physical connection. For systems with PCI 1.1, all eight signaling lanes must be active for full IO Accelerator Duo performance. For systems with PCIe 2.0, only four signaling lanes must be active for full performance.

NOTE: With driver version 3.1.0 and later, the driver detects in the BIOS if the PCIe slot supports a 75W power draw. If the slot supports up to 75W, the IO Accelerator device draws up to that amount of power. However, if an external power cable is used, power is only supplied by that cable.

To verify whether a slot is supplying 75W, view the system logs or use the fio-pci-checkutility.

Before you begin

Before installing the IO Accelerator driver, be sure you have properly installed the IO Accelerator devices. For more information, see the hardware installation instructions that came with your IO Accelerator.

After you install this version of the IO Accelerator driver, you might have to upgrade the firmware to enable operation. For more information, see "Upgrading firmware ("Upgrading the firmware using ESX" on page 16)."

Introduction 10