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back to article Quick as a flash: SanDisk gobbles Fusion-io for an Instagram (that's $1.1bn)

The end-game for flash supplier consolidation is in sight: SanDisk is buying Fusion-io for a paltry $1.1bn. The bare bones are: All-cash transaction for $1.1bn, tendering $11.25 for each Fusion-io share. Both boards are in favour. Fusion’s PCIe flash card and ioControl shared flash array businesses will be integrated with …

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  1. Millennia

    Now they have been acquired they needn't be so precious about their proprietary PCI interface and move to the NVMe model before that becomes too crowded. Their market position will do them a great service as more vendors pick up PCI in server flash as their roadmap.

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    1. Levente Szileszky
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      Err, no...

      ...because as of today FIO's product portfolio is still superior to any of their PCIe competitors, I think. Yes, Intel's latest NVMe-based P3700 model included: besides acting as a very fast direct-attached units FIO drives are actually much more common as a very solid server-side caching solution, largely thanks to its very tuning-friendly (you can go very granular, not only by drive/volume or folder but even by file types!), completely transparent, set-it-and-forget-it caching software. Also as far as I can tell from the from pre-release reviews of the Intel NVMe lineup FIO's "proprietary PCI interface" (sic!) actually more advanced hence the more consistent very low latency, they come at the same price-level or even cheaper especially at large (multi-TB) sizes - AFAIK such larger drives are not even on the roadmap at Intel anytime soon...

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unique Selling Proposition

    They actually wanted Fusion-io's Chief Scientist as part of their plans to counter HP's Machine with a massive parallel network of 6502s.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unique Selling Proposition

      With great Woz comes great responzibility.

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  3. smt789

    Pretty sure SanDisk is in an investor in Tegile, who also recently announced an all flash array to complement their hybrid solution.

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    1. Levente Szileszky
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      Tegile already has AFA, see HA2800, built on SSDs - perhaps you are confusing AFA with having a PCIe-based flash unit...? I recall them talking about something alone that line.

      I can see some synergies between the two - NAS layer for ioControl comes to my mind - but SanDisk flat-out bought FIO today vs being one of the investors in Tegile...

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  4. Levente Szileszky

    As far as ioControl goes...

    ...with its current ~$100k SPX-bundle pricing all they need is a refresh w/ bigger drives (4TB? 5TB?) and the all-new 3rd gen flash cards in the backend (as well as bundled additional FIO cards, they obviously should be 3rd gen as well) and maintain or perhaps lower its price tag a bit and they are good for the rest of the year or even further.

    On the long run it's a tough question, I noticed that the website is now sopmewhat hazy about ION as cards+sw vs ION as cards+sw+ioControl-like appliance... I 'd just keep ION as a custom solution and add a new, all-flash option to ioControl (they can leverage their existing inventory of gen2 cards, perhaps doubling the 10Gb ports on the back?); nevertheless I think ioControl should get a NAS option at some point but getting it done properly (eg certified SMB3.0-level) is a pretty serious task, just ask Tegile about it...

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  5. Mikel

    Payday for Woz finally?

    He deserves a big win.

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