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[pcworld] Intel Optane Memory has a mission: Make hard drives faster than SSDs

14K views 105 replies 47 participants last post by  Badexample 
#1 ·
I'm hoping for more
but its looks like we have to wait until intel lets loose Optane Memory and 3dxpoint SSD

they still testing w enterprise customers (?? small scale)
Quote:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3184464/storage/intel-optane-memory-has-a-mission-make-hard-drives-faster-than-ssds.html

Intel's Optane Memory could be the most revolutionary letdown in storage history. Announced Monday morning, these first consumer Optane-based devices will be available April 24 in two M.2 trims: A 16GB model for $44 and a 32GB Optane Memory device for $77. Both are rated for crazy-fast read speeds of 1.2GBps and writes of 280MBps.

If you're wondering how you can install Windows 10 on one of these, you can't. The first two Optane Memory devices instead are meant to be used primarily as cache drives for a traditional hard drive, using a technique similar to the Smart Response Technology Intel introduced in 2011.
 
#4 ·
Is this more of a normalization move to bring the performance to regular users? I personally know a ton of people who just raid 0 ssd's like 5 years ago to get this level of performance.

oh and please no lectures on Raid 0 failure. This is OCN and I pursue dat performance.

I would imagine it kills the iops or something along those lines?
 
#5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by sKorcheDeArtH View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by hhuey5 View Post

I'm hoping for more
but its looks like we have to wait until intel lets loose Optane Memory and 3dxpoint SSD

they still testing w enterprise customers (?? small scale)
Linus did a video on this. Results are great.
https://youtu.be/bO_fh450u6Y
That is not a real review, it's a video sponsored by Intel where he didn't test with an SSD to show the differences. The same with the article in the OP, "a controlled atmosphere", as the author says and further adds: "I was not allowed to take photographs or screenshots, and we were closely supervised by Intel staff. Take these observations with a grain of salt.".

And this is very relevant because you can get a 240 / 256 GB SATA 3 SSD for under $90 or a 120 / 128 GB one for under $50 to put your OS, applications and even a game or two and they won't need a second run to realise the benefits, nor possibly yet one more when the data you want to be sped up was evicted from the Optane Memory, nor do they need a special chipset to be able to be used. If the objective is to get people still using an HDD as a boot and application drive to get better performance, this isn't it because it won't work in older systems, whereas a SATA 3 SSD will, and newer systems can have a SATA 3 and / or an M.2 SSD installed. Many 2 in 1s and laptops are using flash storage exclusively, so what are the benefits of this? Nobody knows because nobody was allowed to test prior to release.

Semiaccurate didn't have nice things to say about what they did with the tech media. Here's an interesting read: http://semiaccurate.com/2017/03/27/intel-crosses-unacceptable-ethical-line/

These two cache modules are a disappointing product for 2017. Their twisted example of using a 2017 PC with 4 GB of memory (something you could get on a mid-range laptop from 9 years ago) shows how this isn't what people were waiting for. Not to mention the bad taste marketing slide where they mention "Fanatic Gamer" and "eSport Gamer" (here).

When they release a properly sized Optane Memory SSD later this year for the consumer space, then we can talk again.
 
#6 ·
thanks for rsp

I was not expecting any consumer optane products all enterprise products
also I not heard of any competitor progress

yup sponsored peek at the tech
they are takin baby steps

I'm more into xPt long term data storage plus any performance that exceeds HDD
Quote:
Originally Posted by tpi2007 View Post

That is not a real review, it's a video sponsored by Intel where he didn't test with an SSD to show the differences. The same with the article in the OP, "a controlled atmosphere" as the author says and further adds: "I was not allowed to take photographs or screenshots, and we were closely supervised by Intel staff. Take these observations with a grain of salt.".

And this is very relevant because you can get a 256 GB SATA 3 SSD for under $90 or a 120 / 128 GB one for under $50 to put your OS, applications and even a game or two and they won't need a second run to realise the benefits, nor possibly yet one more when the data you want to be sped up was evicted from the Optane Memory, nor do they need a special chipset to be able to use. If the objective is to get people still using an HDD as a boot and application drive to get better performance, this isn't it because it won't work in older systems and newer systems can just have either a SATA 3 or an M.2 SSD installed. Many 2-1s and laptops are using flash storage exclusively, so what are the benefits of this? Nobody knows because nobody was allowed to test prior to release.

Semiaccurate didn't have nice things to say about what they did with the tech media. Here's an interesting read: http://semiaccurate.com/2017/03/27/intel-crosses-unacceptable-ethical-line/

These two cache modules are a disappointing product for 2017. Their twisted examples of using a 2017 PC with 4 GB of memory (something you could get on a mid-range laptop from 9 years ago) show how this isn't what people were waiting for. Not to mention the bad taste marketing slide where they mention "Fanatic Gamer" and "eSport Gamer" (here).

When they release a properly sized Optane Memory SSD later this year for the consumer space then we can talk again.
 
#10 ·
This low capacity "cache" offering of Optane is essentially useless, just like SRT quickly became once prices of SSD's lowered and SSHD's hit the market.
 
#11 ·
Better off to buy twice as much ram as you need and make a ram drive for your caching.
 
#12 ·
Speaking of caching, couldn't someone just buy one of these, a pcie adapter if necessary, and use it as a pagefile, or move tmp directories over there, and other stuff you would typically use a ramdisk for?
Is the kabylake/270 requirement for basic functionality or some new fancy auto functionality?
 
#13 ·
Quote:
One limitation of Optane Memory could be a deal-breaker for many users: Intel says Optane Memory will be tied to Kaby Lake CPUs
Hah this going to go nowhere!
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by hhuey5 View Post

I'm hoping for more
but its looks like we have to wait until intel lets loose Optane Memory and 3dxpoint SSD

they still testing w enterprise customers (?? small scale)
1.2GB/s?

So half the speed of my SSD? And a 10th of the speed of my RAM?Why am I supposed to care about this again?

At least it's cheap, but what a waste of an M.2 slot.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmgjet View Post

Better off to buy twice as much ram as you need and make a ram drive for your caching.
unfortunately there is a hard limit to the amount of ram you can have.

for ITX systems you are limited to 2 dimms which caps at 16GB for DDR3 and 32Gb for DDR4
for most typical systems are limited to 4 dimms at 32GB DDR3 and 64GB DDR4
HEDT with 8 dimm slots are lucky to have up to 64GB DDR3 or 128GB DDR4

getting over 32GB ram is really costly and 32GB is not really enough to feed chrome

server platforms will have to fork out for really expensive ECC ram

as for HDD caching, 2TB+ SSD are still extremely costly while a typical 2.5" 2TB HDD is just slow. caching is better then nothing.
 
#20 ·
I couldn't tell for sure from Intel's info, but if the drive can be used as a standalone drive and doesn't have to be a cache drive for a larger volume, I'd be very interested in trying out the 32 GB one as a main drive for a basic Lubuntu system. $77 isn't bad at all if you don't need the space.
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Warrax22 View Post

Selling at 2.40$/2.75$ per GB just to boost your HDD is not an interesting deal...might as well buy an SSD or an actual M.2 SSD instead...
sure.... but not everyone can afford a 2TB+ SSD but most people can afford a 2TB HDD and a cache SSD
Quote:
Originally Posted by fragamemnon View Post

What exactly are you doing with your Chrome?!
tabs.... just tabs..... and chrome memory leaks......

using 30ish GB /32GB that i have and i've maxed out what my system can take.

just let chrome sit for a few days without closing it and it would just increase in ram usage
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by akromatic View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Warrax22 View Post

Selling at 2.40$/2.75$ per GB just to boost your HDD is not an interesting deal...might as well buy an SSD or an actual M.2 SSD instead...
sure.... but not everyone can afford a 2TB+ SSD but most people can afford a 2TB HDD and a cache SSD
Quote:
Originally Posted by fragamemnon View Post

What exactly are you doing with your Chrome?!
tabs.... just tabs..... and chrome memory leaks......

using 30ish GB /32GB that i have and i've maxed out what my system can take.

just let chrome sit for a few days without closing it and it would just increase in ram usage
A 120 / 128 GB SSD costs under $50 and lets you put a full 64-bit Windows install, your applications and a game or two (depending on the size, certainly not GTA V). For that money you can only buy the 16 GB Optane stick. For $77 you can buy the 32 GB Optane stick, but a 256 GB SSD costs under $90 and lets you put your OS, applications and most played games in there. No worries about having the data evicted from the small cache and having to run applications and games twice in order to see the benefits. I don't really see an argument here.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by tpi2007 View Post

A 120 / 128 GB SSD costs under $50 and lets you put a full 64-bit Windows install, your applications and a game or two (depending on the size, certainly not GTA V). For that money you can only buy the 16 GB Optane stick. For $77 you can buy the 32 GB Optane stick, but a 256 GB SSD costs under $90 and lets you put your OS, applications and most played games in there. No worries about having the data evicted from the small cache and having to run applications and games twice in order to see the benefits. I don't really see an argument here.
yes i agree that a small 120gb ssd is better value but not everyone wants to constantly shift games between drives or redownload them. that just creates unnecessary wear and more hassle + time to shift games.

much easier to leave your entire collection predownloaded and available on a large HDD and let the cache intelligently sort it as you go.

using a small ssd for games is no different from caching it anyway but it involves alot of manual work shifting games as you go.
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by akromatic View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by tpi2007 View Post

A 120 / 128 GB SSD costs under $50 and lets you put a full 64-bit Windows install, your applications and a game or two (depending on the size, certainly not GTA V). For that money you can only buy the 16 GB Optane stick. For $77 you can buy the 32 GB Optane stick, but a 256 GB SSD costs under $90 and lets you put your OS, applications and most played games in there. No worries about having the data evicted from the small cache and having to run applications and games twice in order to see the benefits. I don't really see an argument here.
yes i agree that a small 120gb ssd is better value but not everyone wants to constantly shift games between drives or redownload them. that just creates unnecessary wear and more hassle + time to shift games.

much easier to leave your entire collection predownloaded and available on a large HDD and let the cache intelligently sort it as you go.

using a small ssd for games is no different from caching it anyway but it involves alot of manual work shifting games as you go.
Before Steam allowed you to move games around it was already easy with SteamMover. The problem with the cache is that it's a hassle to realize the benefits. The first time you play a game you're not going to see much. And the second time perhaps also not because you may have been browsing the web, as you say with a bazillion tabs open and the game's cached files were since evicted from said cache. So in practice you'd have to start and play games twice in a row. Once just to let it cache and then a second time to actually enjoy the game as you want. This doesn't make any sense. Also, I don't see how large games can be effectively cached. GTA V is 65 GB (not counting DLC). That's 4 times the size of the smaller cache and a little over two times the larger one. In a game where you can roam free to every place on the map, you'll never have the whole thing cached in time to be useful, which defeats the purpose.
 
#26 ·
I think you guys are missing the point. The real reason this is significant is not the speed, capacity, or cost/performance, but it is because of the ridiculously low latency for non-volatile storage. That's especially important for some enterprise workloads. Of course, these drives are not targeting the general enthusiast, but they do serve a niche. Just my 2c.
 
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