Fusion-io Unveils 1.6 TB ioFX, teams with HP

Fusion io 1.6TB card

High Capacity ioFX Delivers Peak Performance for Professional Computer Graphics Applications including 4K Visual Effects Production, Stereoscopic 3D, Digital Intermediate, Computer Assisted Design and Video Editing 

Fusion-io recently announced that the ioFX workstation acceleration platform is now available with 1.6 TB of capacity, in addition to the original 420 GB form factor. The high capacity ioFX is ideal for video editing, computer assisted design (CAD), 4K and stereoscopic production, as well as digital intermediate (DI) finishing.

Here's the detail from Fusion I/O's press release:

"Digital production is undergoing a resolution revolution as production moves to 4K and beyond, while production budgets and deadlines continue to tighten," said Vincent Brisebois, Fusion-io Director of Visual Computing. "To overcome these opposing forces, the Fusion ioFX can help digital artists efficiently deliver creative work faster, even when faced with the most demanding production requirements. Fusion-io is proud to collaborate with industry leading software developers and hardware companies to deliver breakthrough acceleration for the tools used by professional artists worldwide."

Based on the Fusion ioMemory platform trusted to accelerate data centers around the world, the 1.6 TB Fusion ioFX significantly improves workstation application performance. The Fusion ioFX removes traditional data storage bottlenecks to allow high performance CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs) to operate at their full potential, enabling artists to composite, edit, playback and finish digital content with significantly greater speed and efficiency. The ioFX is also ideal for encoding, transcoding, particle simulations and working with large amounts of cached data.

Connecting via PCI Express, the ioFX is capable of reading data at 1.4GBps and writing at 1.1 GBps, much faster than hard drives and nearly three times faster than the fastest SSD drives.

Fusion ioMemory software enables Fusion-io products to transparently deliver peak performance through an advanced operating system architecture that cuts through the latency introduced by hard drives and solid state disks. Fusion ioMemory products such as the ioFX also include Fusion ioSphere remote monitoring and management software, allowing IT teams to monitor and manage all Fusion-io solutions deployed throughout a studio from a single interface.

The 1.6 TB Fusion ioFX will be available in summer 2013. The 420 GB ioFX is available now from Fusion-io and Value Added Resellers around the world for a list price of $1995 USD. Although the 1.6TB version is four times the capacity it should not be four times the price according to Vincent Brisebois

Fusion-io also announced that it is collaborating with global workstation leader HP to integrate the Fusion ioFX into the award-winning HP Z820, Z620 and Z420 Workstations. The integrated solutions will offer ideal development platforms for professional artists in visual effects, upstream exploration of oil and gas, digital content creation (DCC) and computer-aided design (CAD). In addition, professionals interested in adding the Fusion ioFX to their current HP Workstation can purchase the ioFX as a custom integration component.

"I consider HP one of the best engineering companies in the world, so I'm thrilled to see HP and Fusion-io working together to advance workstation computing architectures," said Steve Wozniak, Fusion-io Chief Scientist. "The Fusion ioFX brings the intelligence of the Fusion-io approach to HP's incredible workstations, adding even more powerful application performance to the precision engineering HP is known for around the world."

The Fusion ioFX provides unprecedented application acceleration to leading workstation applications such as those from Adobe, Assimilate, and The Foundry. The new solution will integrate the Fusion ioFX into the powerful HP Z Workstations with Intel Xeon processors. The architecture is designed to deliver an industry-leading platform for digital content creation applications by moving beyond the performance limitations and bottlenecks of traditional systems.

"HP is the workstation industry leader, and our customers demand to be the first to get cutting edge solutions that deliver performance, reliability and innovation," said Jeff Wood, vice president of product management, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. "Providing the Fusion ioFX in our high-end HP Z Workstations will offer customers improved performance to tackle their most challenging projects faster."

Tuned for sustained performance in multithreaded applications, the ioFX enables artists to work on 2K, 4K and 5K content interactively, in full resolution, as well as to manipulate stereoscopic content in real time. With powerful throughput to maximize NVIDIA GPU processing, the ioFX will slash application wait times in HP WZ Workstations to accelerate both the hardware and software essential to professional digital content creation.