3D Xpoint Memory (Intel Optane)

Jesus! Wasn't optane supposed to be roughly price parity to flash, or am I entirely mistaken here?

It was supposed to be priced between DRAM and FLASH, which it is: Just a lot closer to DRAM.

I'd like to see it succeed, but I have a hard time seeing how it can happen. Permanent storage is (almost) always accessed with filesystem semantics, stuff is loaded and stored one chunk at a time. The chunk size is normally 4KB.

The advantages of Optane over NAND are more write cycles, lower latency and byte addressability. However, if it is used as a regular storage device you don't really take advantage of the lower latency and byte addressability. Then you're left with more write cycles as the only advantage, which really is a non-issue with modern enterprise class SSDs.

Cheers
 
It was supposed to be priced between DRAM and FLASH, which it is: Just a lot closer to DRAM.
Righto. Gotcha! :LOL:

It's not so much what you say, as what you don't say. *sigh* Corporations...

I'd like to see it succeed, but I have a hard time seeing how it can happen.
Well, yeah. Not at these ludicrous prices, that's for sure...

Then you're left with more write cycles as the only advantage, which really is a non-issue with modern enterprise class SSDs.
Maybe for really heavy write loads, massively realtime updated databases and whatnot.
 
These are rare and XPoint drives lack capacity.
They seriosly lack capacity for enterpise uses.
You chain a bunch of these drives together, you can have 1-3TB+ capacity per socket 2066 RAID5 hanging right off the CPU's PCIe lanes. Lots more if using one of the drives with more than 375GB capacity, and/or multi-port RAID cards. What kind of heavy write database needs that much storage?
 
You chain a bunch of these drives together, you can have 1-3TB+ capacity per socket 2066 RAID5 hanging right off the CPU's PCIe lanes. Lots more if using one of the drives with more than 375GB capacity, and/or multi-port RAID cards.
That's a pretty original way to waste dosh.
Might as well throw them down the loo or burn them live on twitch or something.
 
Then you're left with more write cycles as the only advantage, which really is a non-issue with modern enterprise class SSDs.
According to intel here is a list of the advantages: (via tomshardware)
High Random Read And Write Performance
High Performance At Low Queue Depths
High Simultaneous Read And Write Performance
High Read And Write Performance At Small Capacity Points
High Performance Maintained As The Drive Fills
Heavy Workloads That Cause Drive Wear And Require High Endurance
 
Oh and whaddya know. Less than a day after my original post here and Intel launches their SSD Optane 900P series of high-end consumer drives, in both PCIe and 2.5" U.2 form factors. 480GB for $600; that's around a quarter to a third of their enterprise line AND larger capacity to boot. (And marginally higher peak read speed too, interestingly.)

Downside is loss of write endurance (still major though), loss of write speed, and some "pro"/management features (SMbus was mentioned.)

So it is a very fast drive which is quite small, and very expensive. I'm still looking at buying one, just because I have an M.2 slot left over where this guy could plug in with the appropriate adaptor... :p
 
Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X is apparently released now; the 375GB 2.5" U.2 version is found at one retailer by the search site I'm using and it costs 'only' about €2200. :runaway:

Jesus! Wasn't optane supposed to be roughly price parity to flash, or am I entirely mistaken here?

I guess one needs just a little while longer for the 'consumer' 900P model (not really much of a consumer prodct though tbh), still expensive for average consumer but not too bad a price, shame still only limited capacity of 480GB though.
Looks like price is around $390 for the 280GB model and anywhere from $700 to $1,000 for the 480GB model due to price markups and availability or lack of I should say.

Edit:
NVM and sorry Grall somehow missed your last post.
Still it is very much worth it for certain scenarios, and it has great durability.
Personally I think what Intel really needs to do is sell a higher capacity Optane cache product (say 128GB) that importantly can be used on more than just the boot drive.
Nice market to combine that with large capacity non-NVMe SSD drives; sadly Intel seems more keen on providing various products that are less than ideal though both for Cache/memory concept and separately the PCIe SSD - more so the consumer market.
 
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