Intel Optane

[Brado78]

Is this a new SSD all together or just an extremely fast caching drive? The next step in SSD and HDD setups?

 

[MustISO]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155...-can-expect-in-pcs-and-when-it-will-ship.html

An advancement in SSD technology but I'm starting to have doubts. It sounded amazing when it first came out, we'll have to see if it ever lives up to that.

 

[UsandThem]

An advancement in SSD technology but I'm starting to have doubts. It sounded amazing when it first came out, we'll have to see if it ever lives up to that.

+1

This. The 600p was also supposed to be much better than it turned out. In fact, it is probably the worst performing NVMe drive currently out there. However, it also shows Intel has one of the best marketing teams in tech.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Is this a new SSD all together or just an extremely fast caching drive? The next step in SSD and HDD setups?

Both. And more. But the cache and the SSD is a step until the "real" one arrives. And that's on a DRAM interface. For servers it's in testing, for consumers really give it 5 years. The DRAM versions will achieve most of their claims. Make no mistake though, currently Optane and 3D XPoint is just a gap filler between DRAM and SSD in price, performance, and density.

They do have a problem right now with I believe yield and production. In semiconductors, yields is intricately related to specs so it might turn out muted than they originally wanted. By the original plan it should have been here 6 months ago.

Still, performance wise it'll be a big step. Even the cache and SSD ones. The real key here is small random I/O performance and latency.

 

[Brado78]

In other words, EXTREME OVERKILL for most users

 

[whm1974]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155...-can-expect-in-pcs-and-when-it-will-ship.html

An advancement in SSD technology but I'm starting to have doubts. It sounded amazing when it first came out, we'll have to see if it ever lives up to that.

Don't forget about Micron's QuantX which is their version of 3D Xpoint. From what I read they are going to focus on SSDs as storage devices and not cache or DIMMs.

 

[IntelUser2000]

In other words, EXTREME OVERKILL for most users

Yes. Well, the caching setup should impact most amount of users. By that I mean those that buy pre-built systems and/or price conscious. On the enthusiast and high end part of the market SSD penetration is good, but in the regular consumer market price is still important. That's where hard drives still rule. If (there is some doubt on this) the caching setup is effective enough, you might end up with something that I believe Intel wanted for years - SSD-like performance at cheaper prices.

They tried that for few generations before, but it never took off. First, no matter the implementation, you can't cache very slow hard drive with an SSD to hope to end up like an SSD. The very best case will be slower than SSD and have no headroom in other scenarios to make it anywhere near an SSD. The algorithm on making the hybrid setup work alone has to use up some of its performance to overcome the overhead. Because the Optane cache has metrics which make it superior to NAND devices I am hoping it'll work far better. Not to mention some work they've done in the past few years to make it work on servers are fruitful.

If it works my pipedream is that the Optane cache will somehow work on Ryzen systems. I was eyeing KBL on that but Ryzen seems like a sea of change.

 

[Billy Tallis]

If it works my pipedream is that the Optane cache will somehow work on Ryzen systems. I was eyeing KBL on that but Ryzen seems like a sea of change.

So far we have no indication that the Optane cache drives will be anything other than standard NVMe M.2 devices, so they should work fine with any caching software that could use a flash-based NVMe device as a cache.

 

[TheELF]

Caching will probably work but optane as ram will (probably) not and that's where we expect the most gains.
Getting a 64Gb optane drive for windows and pagefile leaving the rest to work as "normal" ram will make a big difference.

 

[Ichinisan]

My body is ready.

 

[shabby]

Requires kaby lake https://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2017/02/21/intel-optane-system-requirements/1
Rip intel optane.

 

[Ichinisan]

Requires kaby lake https://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2017/02/21/intel-optane-system-requirements/1
Rip intel optane.

Only the DRAM replacement module, right? (Did not click)

 

[UsandThem]

Requires kaby lake https://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2017/02/21/intel-optane-system-requirements/1
Rip intel optane.

While Intel is clearly getting ready to launch its Optane modules for the desktop, the company is keeping quiet on exactly when the devices will hit retail and, critically, how much they will cost.

If it's like how Intel has priced their stuff in the past, they will price themselves out of consideration.

 

[tamz_msc]

Why are the Kaby Lake Pentiums left out?

 

[Brado78]

tamz- What do you mean? There are Kaby lake pentiums out. Unlike the Skylakes, the Kaby Lakes ones have Hyper threading which is really good, especially for budget builders.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3156...ome-hyper-threading-bling-to-boost-sales.html

 

[TheELF]

tamz- What do you mean? There are Kaby lake pentiums out. Unlike the Skylakes, the Kaby Lakes ones have Hyper threading which is really good, especially for budget builders.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3156...ome-hyper-threading-bling-to-boost-sales.html

He isn't talking about that,main article links to a requirement site of intel where only core i CPUs are listed so officially the pentiums are left out for optane ram.
But it might be that intel is just trying to sell more core CPUs, steering people away from pentiums,they still might support optane in the future.
(Just like quick sync got enabled in haswell celerons after a while via drivers)

 

[Brado78]

there is nothing wrong with Pentiums

 

[cbn]

I think it is a bit ironic that Pentium is excluded from using Optane.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think it is a bit ironic that Pentium is excluded from using Optane.

Exactly. It would seem that the greatest demand for a HDD + Optane Memory (SSD cache) configuration, would be with "budget" OEM rigs, with Pentium (or lower) CPUs. At usual, Intel's market segmentation is at work, and it doesn't make much sense. (How's limiting AVX/AVX2 opcodes to only "Core"-level CPUs working out for you, Intel, in your fight against ARM?)

 

[VirtualLarry]

He isn't talking about that,main article links to a requirement site of intel where only core i CPUs are listed so officially the pentiums are left out for optane ram.

Btw, that's the same thing, for Intel's SRT SSD caching. No Celeron/Pentium, only "Core"-class CPUs. Not sure that this was always the requirement, I believe that they added it at some point. Could be wrong about that. (I think that they supported SRT on Nehalem?)

 

[Billy Tallis]

Only the DRAM replacement module, right?

Intel's not talking about Optane NVDIMMs yet. The "Optane Memory" products that are supported by consumer-grade Kaby Lake are M.2 SSDs intended for use as cache devices paired with hard drives. There's no indication that NVDIMM support is coming to Intel's consumer product line anytime soon.

However, as I explained in December, it seems quite likely that there is no new hardware functionality of any kind with Kaby Lake to enable the Optane support that Intel is talking about. All the hardware functionality they need for using NVMe Optane SSDs as cache devices seems to be present on Skylake's chipsets to enable RST RAID of NVMe SSDs. The Kaby Lake requirement is probably just so that Intel doesn't have to deal with the complexity of deploying NVMe caching support in motherboard firmware updates. I would not be at all surprised to see someone hack RST to allow Optane caching on Skylake (probably not on a bootable volume), and Optane caching of SATA SSDs (where Intel has only announced support for Optane caching of hard drives).

Any non-RST caching software solution that supports NVMe cache devices will probably work exactly the same for Optane cache SSDs. as for flash-based NVMe cache SSDs. ie. Linux users will have all the same caching software options with Optane as they have with current SSDs.

 

[tamz_msc]

Intel's not talking about Optane NVDIMMs yet. The "Optane Memory" products that are supported by consumer-grade Kaby Lake are M.2 SSDs intended for use as cache devices paired with hard drives. There's no indication that NVDIMM support is coming to Intel's consumer product line anytime soon.

However, as I explained in December, it seems quite likely that there is no new hardware functionality of any kind with Kaby Lake to enable the Optane support that Intel is talking about. All the hardware functionality they need for using NVMe Optane SSDs as cache devices seems to be present on Skylake's chipsets to enable RST RAID of NVMe SSDs. The Kaby Lake requirement is probably just so that Intel doesn't have to deal with the complexity of deploying NVMe caching support in motherboard firmware updates. I would not be at all surprised to see someone hack RST to allow Optane caching on Skylake (probably not on a bootable volume), and Optane caching of SATA SSDs (where Intel has only announced support for Optane caching of hard drives).

Any non-RST caching software solution that supports NVMe cache devices will probably work exactly the same for Optane cache SSDs. as for flash-based NVMe cache SSDs. ie. Linux users will have all the same caching software options with Optane as they have with current SSDs.

Interesting. Any particular reason, other than segmentation, why the Pentiums are left out?

 

[PingSpike]

Btw, that's the same thing, for Intel's SRT SSD caching. No Celeron/Pentium, only "Core"-class CPUs. Not sure that this was always the requirement, I believe that they added it at some point. Could be wrong about that. (I think that they supported SRT on Nehalem?)

Naw, that's true. I think z68 is the earliest chipset that worked with it. And if definitely didn't work with sandybridge celeron.
Intel comes up with a software tech that's a great idea for budget people, then makes it available only on their higher end stuff to sell it as a value add. Then no one uses it because you could just buy a bigger SSD and pair it with their cheap stuff to get a better solution for less money. Consumer SSD caching has turned out like SLI: Buy one now, buy a cheap one later! Sounds like it will be awesome, but its really just a technical hassle with suboptimal results that doesn't even give you the savings you expected in the end.

 

[Rubycon]

High end nvme can keep cores occupied currently. A single socket quad core CPU is going to struggle to keep up. It would be nice if everything ran like it was cached at 500GB/S.