Fusion-IO ioDrive: How To Determine Wear Level and Understand Warranty Terms

1. Does the Dell hardware warranty cover a Fusion-IO ioDrive or ioDrive2 device which has failed due to wear?
2. How do I determine the wear level on an ioDrive device?
3. What warranty terms are available on an ioDrive device?

Does the Dell hardware warranty cover a Fusion-I/O ioDrive device which has failed due to wear?
A Fusion-I/O ioDrive device has a limited wear level rated in Peta-Bytes Written (PBW) which is displayed within the management applications for the card.

This PBW value decrements in line with the count of writes which are carried out on the device. This is the rated life-expectancy of the memory cells before they are considered 'worn'.

Where an ioDrive device has exceeded the PBW rating that its health enters a warning state. While the card remains functional for this duration, it should be retired from use at the earliest opportunity.
Dell's hardware warranty does not cover these use-cases where the PBW has been exhausted.

How do I determine the wear level on an ioDrive device?

The PBW level is available within the fio-status command output.

Example:

c:\> fio-status -a
...
fct0 Attached
SN:ABCDE1234-1111
SMP(AVR) Versions: App Version: 1.0.29.0, Boot Version: 0.0.9.1
Located in slot 0 Upper of ioDrive2 Adapter Controller SN:ABCDE1234
Powerloss protection: protected
PCI:46:00.0, Slot Number:118
Vendor:1aed, Device:2001, Sub vendor:1028, Sub device:1f71
Firmware v7.1.17, rev 116786 Public
1205.00 GBytes device size
Format: v500, 294189453 sectors of 4096 bytes
PCIe slot available power: 25.00W
PCIe negotiated link: 4 lanes at 5.0 Gt/sec each, 2000.00 MBytes/sec total
Internal temperature: 37.90 degC, max 38.39 degC
Internal voltage: avg 1.01V, max 1.02V
Aux voltage: avg 2.49V, max 2.49V
Reserve space status: Healthy; Reserves: 100.00%, warn at 10.00%
Active media: 100.00%
Rated PBW: 17.00 PB, 92.88% remaining
Lifetime data volumes:
Physical bytes written: 1,210,890,782,634,680
Physical bytes read : 1,057,734,674,912,448
RAM usage:
Current: 4,137,031,232 bytes
Peak : 4,137,031,232 bytes
Contained VSUs:
fct0: ID:0, UUID:a877882e-4744-4a94-b9c1-xxxyyyzzz

In the example above, the PBW can be observed to be 92.88% remaining.

What warranty terms are available on an ioDrive device?

Dell's US Terms and Conditions state that the warranty period on an ioDrive device cannot exceed a 5-year period as seen below:

All variants of ioDrive NAND Flash devices carry the length of the limited hardware warranty coverage for the Dell system with which the ioDrive NAND Flash device is shipped. ioDrive NAND Flash devices are not eligible for purchase of extended warranty coverage beyond a total of 5 years of coverage from the original shipment date. Additionally, ioDrive NAND Flash devices use a silicon technology that has a maximum number of physical bytes that can be written to the device (the Rated Life). The applicable limited hardware warranty covers failures due to defects in workmanship and/or materials, but does not cover problems related to the device reaching its maximum Rated Life. ioDrive is a registered trademark of Fusion-io.