The SmartIO feature of Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions (SFHA Solutions) enables data efficiency on your SSDs through I/O caching. Using SmartIO to improve efficiency, you can optimize the cost per IOPS. SmartIO does not require in-depth knowledge of the hardware technologies underneath. SmartIO uses advanced, customizable heuristics to determine what data to cache and how that data gets removed from the cache. The heuristics take advantage of SFHA Solutions' knowledge of the characteristics of the workload. SmartIO supports read and write caching for VxFS file systems mounted on VxVM volumes, in several caching modes and configurations.

To use SmartIO, you set up a cache area on the target device. You can do this task simply with one command, while the application is online. When the application issues an I/O request, SmartIO checks to see if the I/O can be serviced from the cache. As applications access data from the underlying volumes or file systems, certain data is moved to the cache based on the internal heuristics. Subsequent I/Os are processed from the cache. You can also customize which data is cached, by adding advisory information to assist the SmartIO feature in making those determinations.

For more information, see the Symantec. Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions SmartIO for Solid State Drives Solutions Guide for details.