It has been a few months since Al looked at Intel's Optane and its impressive performance and price. This is why it seems appropriate to revist the 2280 M.2 stick with a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface. It is not just the performance which is interesting but the technology behind Optane and the limitations. For anyone looking to utilize Optane is is worth reminding you of the compatibility limitations Intel requires, only Kaby Lake processors with Core i7, i5 or i3 heritage. If you do qualify already or are planning a system build, you can revisit the performance numbers over at Kitguru.
"Optane is Intel’s brand name for their 3D XPoint memory technology. The first Optane product to break cover was the Optane PC P4800X, a very high-performance SSD aimed at the Enterprise segment. Now we have the second product using the technology, this time aimed at the consumer market segment – the Intel Optane Memory module."
Here are some more Memory articles from around the web:
Memory
- G.SKILL TridentZ RGB 3600 MHz C16 DDR4 @ techPowerUp
- GSKill Trident Z 4133Mhz RGB CL19 DDR4 Dual Channel Memory Review @ Hardware Asylum
- Ballistix Elite 3466 MHz DDR4 @ techPowerUp
Lack of optane for Xeon is
Lack of optane for Xeon is interesting. LSI just looks like a better path. 32gb is to low. NVME is still king.
Personally I think both can
Personally I think both can be utilized if optane is used correctly, not as a speedup cache but as a low density high response disk for something like SQL queries or other response intensive workloads that benefit from something like ramdisk but might want to utilize a more reliable setup.
No word on quantex by micron?
No word on quantex by micron? Was hoping those would be compatible with ryzen. I have $5680 set aside for a nice thread ripping Beast but I wanna get those dimms setup. As well as good custom loop.
I want to see this technology
I want to see this technology deployed as a straightforward 1 or 2 TB M.2 NVME SSD – at a reasonable price too.
But while Intel insist on milking us by drip feeding us very low capacities at stupid prices, then a normal SSD that we can all actually use isn’t going to happen any time soon.
I also don’t like the way they have deliberately tied this to their own platforms, so you can’t take it and use it elsewhere.
[quote]I also don’t like the
[quote]I also don’t like the way they have deliberately tied this to their own platforms, so you can’t take it and use it elsewhere.[/quote]
The fancy RST transparent caching is tied to Intel PCHs (because it’s the PCH doing the work), but on any pther platform you can plug in an Optane SSD and it’s just exposed like any other NVME PCIe SSD. Use it as a ZIL or L2ARC drive, use it as an explicit cache, use it as a boot drive, whatever.
If AMD were to implement their own transparent caching system for their own chipsets that could cache to generic NVME SSDs, then you could use Optane there too.
Better to just wait and see
Better to just wait and see what any Micron QuantX/XPoint and licensed by Micron to others QuantX IP in any major NMV/SSD marker’s products will look like. XPoint’s durability is no where near as good as what it may be after a few generations. So maybe if you are in need of great Random IO performance then maybe try out some early low capacity Optane, but I’d wait on any XPoint based DIMMs until there is lots of indipendent testing.
The market for XPoint will not be an Intel only market too much longer as Micron is scehduled to have some QuantX products by the end of 2017.
“Micron is apparently taking a path that differs from Intel’s though, in that it’s looking to license its 3D Xpoint technology to other storage makers (not currently known which), in SSD or DDR-like formats, according to the company. However, these products will likely first target the enterprise space, with QuantX-based SSDs on the PCI-Express 3.0/NVMe protocols, with capacities of up to 1.4TB. Micron is aligning QuantX with emerging throughput technologies like Gen-Z, which could expand QuantX’s reach towards the ARM server market, which has seen increasing interest in recent times.. The QuantX storage and memory will have their own dedicated controllers, sitting close to the CPU for quick data transfers, thus reducing potential bottlenecks.” (1)
(1)
“Micron’s QuantX-based Products to Ship Late 2017”
https://www.techpowerup.com/231918/microns-quantx-based-products-to-ship-late-2017
Any updates on AMDs platform
Any updates on AMDs platform and its support or lack their off when it comes to Optain.
Are you looking, to
Are you looking, to buy/already have, a new Amd system and have a mechanical HDD as an OS drive?
Going from an SSD to optane
Going from an SSD to optane isn’t mindblowing like it was going from an HDD to an SSD. At this point in time, optane just isn’t worth it.