Who exactly are the new super cheap Optane drives for? Seems to me like no one is going to buy them.

[Spork829]

So Intel announces this 16/32GB thing you can get for really cheap and put into your computer that will speed up everything by acting as a smart cache if you're booting off of an HDD. Cool. 

 

Except, oh wait a second, you can only run these on Kaby Lake, with a 200 series motherboard? Intel, can you please point me to someone with a Kaby Lake system and 200 series motherboard who is currently booting off an HDD?

 

I'm like the exact target market they should be going for: Motherboard with an M.2 slot, still booting off HDD because too cheap to buy a proper SSD big enough to hold my OS/ all the programs I want to run fast. But no, I'm not on the latest platform, so I'm out of the picture.

 

Now let's say theoretically for some completely inexplicable reason somebody is running a Kaby Lake system with a high end enough motherboard to have an M.2 slot but is booting off their HDD. Wouldn't it just be easier for about the same price or maybe a bit more to buy a 240GB SSD, then you get the added benefit of relieving your HDD of actually storing those files, rather than just helping it along?

 

Am I missing something, or is this Optane thing going to flop because it's literally useful to no one? 

[WereCat]

My guess on this is that Optane is like NVME in terms of compatibility.

 

NVME works on Z97 or newer platform (officially). However, isn't Z87 Haswell too? Shouldn't it support NVME too? Well, it does... so does Z77, Z68, but there is a catch. You need to manually modify BIOS as the hardware support is there, just Intel or the board manufacturers or both decided to make it exclusive to new platforms to boost sales.

 

I also cannot see the appeal in Optane for consumers that already has Z270 as they most likely run M.2 NVME or at least SATA III SSD.

Maybe intel is hoping to make NVME standard to replace SATA III SSDs and they want to replace NVME with Optane once the larger capacity drives will be for sale?

[The Sloth]

here a comprehensive review, short answer currently yes, not very useful. 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11227/intel-launches-optane-memory-m2-cache-ssds-for-client-market

[Guest]

Do B250 motherboards come with M.2 slots? Because technically that's in the 200 series too, and I could see someone with a Pentium G4560 and a B250 board seeing benefit from this.

 

The main problem with buying an SSD is the pain which comes with transferring Windows to your SSD, worrying about what goes on the HDD and what stays on the SSD, that kinda stuff. Optane is doing that for you without any intervention from your part.

 

That said, you do raise a good point with older systems not being able to use it. That, combined with AMD's increasing Ryzen popularity, and due to the fact that Ryzen will obviously not support Optane... well, I'm not really sure how this will pan out.

[Spork829]

Just now, namandoesnotpanic said:

Do B250 motherboards come with M.2 slots? Because technically that's in the 200 series too, and I could see someone with a Pentium G4560 and a B250 board seeing benefit from this.

 

The main problem with buying an SSD is the pain which comes with transferring Windows to your SSD, worrying about what goes on the HDD and what stays on the SSD, that kinda stuff. Optane is doing that for you without any intervention from your part.

 

That said, you do raise a good point with older systems not being able to use it. That, combined with AMD's increasing Ryzen popularity, and due to the fact that Ryzen will obviously not support Optane... well, I'm not really sure how this will pan out.

I think some B250 boards have an M.2 slot, not all. But if I were parting out a very budget oriented system for someone with a B250 MB and a G4560 I would still stick a cheap 120GB boot SSD in there already. No computer built/bought now above like $200 US should go without an SSD IMO. And I guess if you're really so lazy that you can't handle taking three seconds to think about where a program should go when you install it, this is for you. Except not really, because they only have so much capacity. 32 gigs isn't close to enough to handle every program on my PC that I would want to start up with SSD-like speed.

[Spork829]

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Maybe intel is hoping to make NVME standard to replace SATA III SSDs and they want to replace NVME with Optane once the larger capacity drives will be for sale?

In that case they're going in rather the wrong order, that being releasing useless Optane nonsense before NVME is even widespread besides in very high end systems...

[Sakkura]

10 minutes ago, WereCat said:

My guess on this is that Optane is like NVME in terms of compatibility.

 

NVME works on Z97 or newer platform (officially). However, isn't Z87 Haswell too? Shouldn't it support NVME too? Well, it does... so does Z77, Z68, but there is a catch. You need to manually modify BIOS as the hardware support is there, just Intel or the board manufacturers or both decided to make it exclusive to new platforms to boost sales.

 

I also cannot see the appeal in Optane for consumers that already has Z270 as they most likely run M.2 NVME or at least SATA III SSD.

Maybe intel is hoping to make NVME standard to replace SATA III SSDs and they want to replace NVME with Optane once the larger capacity drives will be for sale?

Optane SSDs use NVMe too.

[WereCat]

Just now, Sakkura said:

Optane SSDs use NVMe too.

Ah, damn. I though they use 3DXpoint.

[Appletax]

16 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

So Intel announces this 16/32GB thing you can get for really cheap and put into your computer that will speed up everything by acting as a smart cache if you're booting off of an HDD. Cool. 

 

Except, oh wait a second, you can only run these on Kaby Lake, with a 200 series motherboard? Intel, can you please point me to someone with a Kaby Lake system and 200 series motherboard who is currently booting off an HDD?

 

I'm like the exact target market they should be going for: Motherboard with an M.2 slot, still booting off HDD because too cheap to buy a proper SSD big enough to hold my OS/ all the programs I want to run fast. But no, I'm not on the latest platform, so I'm out of the picture.

 

Now let's say theoretically for some completely inexplicable reason somebody is running a Kaby Lake system with a high end enough motherboard to have an M.2 slot but is booting off their HDD. Wouldn't it just be easier for about the same price or maybe a bit more to buy a 240GB SSD, then you get the added benefit of relieving your HDD of actually storing those files, rather than just helping it along?

 

Am I missing something, or is this Optane thing going to flop because it's literally useful to no one? 

Octane isn't cheap in terms of price per GB ☺️ It's basically a very large and fast cache that goes between your Ram and SATA SSD or HDD. It constantly adapts and stores your most frequently used data for ultra fast access to that data. 

 

CPUs and HDDs have cache. The cache in an HDD may only be 64MB or 128MB whereas Optane is 16GB or 32GB and therefore can hold a ton more data.

 

You'll see the biggest performance boost when using Optane with an HDD since HDDs are soooooo slow. Linus just released a video showing huge reductions in video game load times when adding Optane to a system with an HDD. 

 

The huge feature of Optane is its extremely low latency or time to seek data, which allows it to run to a piece of data faster or rather respond to a request for data faster. 

 

I bet that a huge Optane SSD would woop a regular M. 2 SSD's ass (e.g. Samsung 960).

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

I think some B250 boards have an M.2 slot, not all. But if I were parting out a very budget oriented system for someone with a B250 MB and a G4560 I would still stick a cheap 120GB boot SSD in there already. No computer built/bought now above like $200 US should go without an SSD IMO. And I guess if you're really so lazy that you can't handle taking three seconds to think about where a program should go when you install it, this is for you. Except not really, because they only have so much capacity. 32 gigs isn't close to enough to handle every program on my PC that I would want to start up with SSD-like speed.

Storage space is important for a lot of budget systems. I'd almost always go for a hard drive over an SSD in a cheap build, because 120GB of storage alone doesn't cut it for most people.

 

 

And, well, being lazy is how you put it, but eliminating user input ultimately makes it a much more convenient system.

 

And yes, for you, this doesn't make sense. Not for me either. But say, someone buys an all-in-one, and it has a 1TB hard drive plus a stick of 16GB Optane thrown in. The user has all the storage he needs for his photos and videos, with speeds close enough to an SSD, and while keeping the cost of the system low.

 

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, Appletax said:

Octane isn't cheap in terms of price per GB ☺️ It's basically a very large and fast cache that goes between your Ram and SATA SSD or HDD. It constantly adapts and stores your most frequently used data for ultra fast access to that data. 

 

CPUs and HDDs have cache. The cache in an HDD may only be 64MB or 128MB whereas Optane is 16GB or 32GB and therefore can hold a ton more data.

 

You'll see the biggest performance boost when using Optane with an HDD since HDDs are soooooo slow. Linus just released a video showing huge reductions in video game load times when adding Optane to a system with an HDD. 

 

The huge feature of Optane is its extremely low latency or time to seek data, which allows it to run to a piece of data faster or rather respond to a request for data faster. 

 

I bet that a huge Optane SSD would woop a regular M. 2 SSD's ass (e.g. Samsung 960).

Yeah I was referring to LTT's video which I watched just before making this post because I was just so confused by what Intel is doing. It still doesn't make sense because as you said, it's only a large performance difference on HDDs, which no one on the newest platform will be running in the first place.

[xentropa]

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Ah, damn. I though they use 3DXpoint.

3dxpoint is the memory cell structure.

 

Nvme is a communication protocol

[Clyne]

There's different segments for it...

Optane SSD is different than Optane Memory

Spoiler

There was already a similar thing before anyway, SMART response if you want to use that. Although SMART response is mostly nonexistent due to cheaper SSD GB/price cost. 

[Appletax]

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

Yeah I was referring to LTT's video which I watched just before making this post because I was just so confused by what Intel is doing. It still doesn't make sense because as you said, it's only a large performance difference on HDDs, which no one on the newest platform will be running in the first place.

It's still a performance boost for those who have SATA SSDs because they're still a lot slower than M.2 drives. 

 

What I am trying to figure out is if there's a benefit to using Optane if you have a M.2 SSD.

[Spork829]

2 minutes ago, namandoesnotpanic said:

Storage space is important for a lot of budget systems. I'd almost always go for a hard drive over an SSD in a cheap build, because 120GB of storage alone doesn't cut it for most people.

 

 

And, well, being lazy is how you put it, but eliminating user input ultimately makes it a much more convenient system.

 

And yes, for you, this doesn't make sense. Not for me either. But say, someone buys an all-in-one, and it has a 1TB hard drive plus a stick of 16GB Optane thrown in. The user has all the storage he needs for his photos and videos, with speeds close enough to an SSD, and while keeping the cost of the system low.

 

But the cost of the system would be similarly low if instead it came with a cheap 240GB SATA boot SSD, which would allow said user to install a lot more on it that they would like to run fast, rather than the Optane drive deciding for them what is cached based on their activity. For that reason if I were an SI building said all-in-one, I still wouldn't use Optane, unless that is, Intel paid me lots of money to promote their spicy new gimmick. 

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, Appletax said:

It's still a performance boost for those who have SATA SSDs because they're still a lot slower than M.2 drives. 

 

What I am trying to figure out is if there's a benefit to using Optane if you have a M.2 SSD.

I would assume it's probably pretty minimal. And if that's the case, only people who already have SATA SSDs will want one of these if even, because when building a new system you can just go for an entire M.2 NVME drive.

[Sakkura]

11 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Ah, damn. I though they use 3DXpoint.

They do.

 

3DXpoint is the memory technology, NVMe is the interface protocol.

 

3DXpoint is an alternative to NAND flash (or spinning platters in HDDs).

 

NVMe is an alternative to AHCI or older IDE-based protocols.

[Misanthrope]

I think someone with a moderately or kinda slowish big Sata III SSD could benefit without spending too much in switching all his SSD storage to nvme m.2

 

The "results" in the Linus video (which for the record I implicitly mistrust given how this was not only a controlled intel environment but a sponsored video) seem to eventually give a noticeable boost in day to day use.

 

But like I said this is just in case someone can't just afford a 240gb M.2 nvme SSD to boot and install core apps and games.

[Spork829]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

I think someone with a moderately or kinda slowish big Sata III SSD could benefit without spending too much in switching all his SSD storage to nvme m.2

 

The "results" in the Linus video (which for the record I implicitly mistrust given how this was not only a controlled intel environment but a sponsored video) seem to eventually give a noticeable boost in day to day use.

 

But like I said this is just in case someone can't just afford a 240gb M.2 nvme SSD to boot and install core apps and games.

Right. The only case seems to be someone who has a SATA SSD and needs the extra speed. Because if you're building a new system, I would think the price of the SATA SSD plus an Optane drive would about equal an M.2 NVME drive of the same capacity as that SATA one.

[Bcat00]

Let's face it, this is just going to die out like some of the previous ventures intel tried before.

SSD are cheap enough as it is now and they made this thing to be Kaby Lake only????

Really, if someone can afford that cpu for their build, they can afford a SSD.

[xentropa]

Honestly it doesnt make sense to me either.  All mobile devices have abandoned hdds in favor of flash memory.  Desktops still use hdds sure, but last I checked, that wasn't a growing market.

 

 

[Sakkura]

8 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I think someone with a moderately or kinda slowish big Sata III SSD could benefit without spending too much in switching all his SSD storage to nvme m.2

 

The "results" in the Linus video (which for the record I implicitly mistrust given how this was not only a controlled intel environment but a sponsored video) seem to eventually give a noticeable boost in day to day use.

 

But like I said this is just in case someone can't just afford a 240gb M.2 nvme SSD to boot and install core apps and games.

No, it's pointless with a SATA SSD unless you're running some very specific software that is highly latency-sensitive. It's pointless for consumer use, where SATA SSDs already get loading times etc. pretty much to a minimum. Moving up from a budget SATA SSD to a high-end NVMe SSD makes barely any difference, and the same will be true of Optane even though it's even faster.

[Spork829]

Just now, xentropa said:

Honestly it doesnt make sense to me either.  All mobile devices have abandoned hdds in favor of flash memory.  Desktops still use hdds sure, but last I checked, that wasn't a growing market.

 

 

Ikr, again I could see it more if it was a backwards compatible thing which would allow it to actually reach the market of users still booting off HDDs such as myself, but only supporting the latest and continually-mediocre-est has really hurt them here.  

[Spork829]

2 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

No, it's pointless with a SATA SSD unless you're running some very specific software that is highly latency-sensitive. It's pointless for consumer use, where SATA SSDs already get loading times etc. pretty much to a minimum. Moving up from a budget SATA SSD to a high-end NVMe SSD makes barely any difference, and the same will be true of Optane even though it's even faster.

And even if there was a significant performance difference, I just don't see the market they're aiming this at needing more speed than a SATA SSD anyway.

[TheRandomness]

People who still use HDDs as boot drives in a day where 128GB SSDs are relatively cheap.