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

[Spork829]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

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

*still having been to cheap to buy one intensifies* 

[JoostinOnline]

To put it simply, it's easier.  If you already have a system built, you don't have to bother with a fresh install or cloning.  The same applies to pre-built systems.  You also don't have to bother with two different drives.  No starting over if you accidentally install something big onto your boot drive.  No getting pissed off when a program (like Chrome or Microsoft Office) won't let you choose your installation directory.

 

On a side note, I think it's hilarious that people have been complaining to Intel for needing a Kaby Lake CPU and 200 series motherboard.  They're essentially mad that the technology wasn't integrated before it was invented.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

To put it simply, it's easier.  If you already have a system built, you don't have to bother with a fresh install or cloning.  The same applies to pre-built systems.  You also don't have to bother with two different drives.  No starting over if you accidentally install something big onto your boot drive.  No getting pissed off when a program (like Chrome or Microsoft Office) won't let you choose your installation directory.

But if you already have a system built with a Kaby Lake processor, my point was that it's very likely you aren't running off an HDD and therefore will not be able to benefit in the first place. 

 

2 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

On a side note, I think it's hilarious that people have been complaining to Intel for needing a Kaby Lake CPU and 200 series motherboard.  They're essentially mad that the technology wasn't integrated before it was invented.

It's still based on the NVME standard, which someone else stated in this thread should work down to Z97/87 and possibly older. It's not new tech in that regard; this is an arbitrary limitation. 

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, Spork829 said:

But if you already have a system built with a Kaby Lake processor, my point was that it's very likely you aren't running off an HDD and therefore will not be able to benefit in the first place.

I never debated that.  Intel never said it was for everyone.

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

It's still based on the NVME standard, which someone else stated in this thread should work down to Z97/87 and possibly older. It's not new tech in that regard; this is an arbitrary limitation. 

This is all controlled by the CPU and motherboard.  If it was done by the OS, then it could work on an older system.  Optane is part of Kaby Lake.

[Spork829]

3 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I never debated that.  Intel never said it was for everyone.

But is it for anyone?

 

3 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I never debated that.  Intel never said it was for everyone.

This is all controlled by the CPU and motherboard.  If it was done by the OS, then it could work on an older system.  Optane is part of Kaby Lake.

Exactly, it's controlled by CPU/MB, which have supported M.2 and NVME for the last few generations. The new tech is 3DXPoint, which interfaces with the other hardware through these already existing standards. Therefore it could easily work and very well might with some BIOS mods, we'll have to wait and see.

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, Spork829 said:

But is it for anyone?

Of course it is you moron.  I just explained all the benefits.    Most people won't benefit from it, but for some it will be a really nice solution.

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

Exactly, it's controlled by CPU/MB, which have supported M.2 and NVME for the last few generations. The new tech is 3DXPoint, which interfaces with the other hardware through these already existing standards. Therefore it could easily work and very well might with some BIOS mods, we'll have to wait and see.

No.  You can't just update your CPU.  If you could, then you'd have things like Quick Sync on first gen Core processors.

[xentropa]

10 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

To put it simply, it's easier.  If you already have a system built, you don't have to bother with a fresh install or cloning.  The same applies to pre-built systems.  You also don't have to bother with two different drives.  No starting over if you accidentally install something big onto your boot drive.  No getting pissed off when a program (like Chrome or Microsoft Office) won't let you choose your installation directory.

 

On a side note, I think it's hilarious that people have been complaining to Intel for needing a Kaby Lake CPU and 200 series motherboard.  They're essentially mad that the technology wasn't integrated before it was invented.

In real world practice though, I am not sure if the benefits will be astounding.

 

No matter what, hdd is going to be limited to 150 ish mbps.  So if you're booting up, unless a good chunk of windows is already inside the optane, it wont increase the boot speed.  (Is 16GB even enough for windows 10? )  Same goes with other programs and games.

 

[JoostinOnline]

5 minutes ago, xentropa said:

In real world practice though, I am not sure if the benefits will be astounding.

 

No matter what, hdd is going to be limited to 150 ish mbps.  So if you're booting up, unless a good chunk of windows is already inside the optane, it wont increase the boot speed.  (Is 16GB even enough for windows 10? )  Same goes with other programs and games.

 

All it can do is cache data.  16GB is enough to fit the frequently accessed Windows files, but it's going to vary depending on how much you use other programs.  If you want the best performance and are building it from scratch (or don't mind installing/cloning Windows), then Optane is a total waste of money.

 

What I'm wondering is if it can be configured to only cache HDD files if you already have a SSD.  That would be baller, assuming it works better than SSHD's do (which the benchmarks seems to indicate, since they are pretty ineffective).  You could give whatever you use most frequently on your HDD a speed boost. 

[Spork829]

29 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Of course it is you moron.  I just explained all the benefits.    Most people won't benefit from it, but for some it will be a really nice solution.

No.  You can't just update your CPU.  If you could, then you'd have things like Quick Sync on first gen Core processors.

It wouldn't require any sort of updating you CPU though, that's the point I'm trying to make. It will connect via M.2/NVME, which is already there on the older platforms.

[JoostinOnline]

4 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

It wouldn't require any sort of updating you CPU though, that's the point I'm trying to make. It will connect via M.2/NVME, which is already there on the older platforms.

It takes more than an M.2 port to support Optane drives.  It takes a CPU and motherboard capable of understanding how to manage the data entirely independent of the OS.  Optane and NVMe are NOT the same thing.  There is a reason that this is just now possible.  I'm done trying to explain it to you though.

[SCHISCHKA]

has anyone mentioned database servers running 5400rpm drives?

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, JoostinOnline said:

To put it simply, it's easier.  If you already have a system built, you don't have to bother with a fresh install or cloning.  The same applies to pre-built systems.  You also don't have to bother with two different drives.  No starting over if you accidentally install something big onto your boot drive.  No getting pissed off when a program (like Chrome or Microsoft Office) won't let you choose your installation directory.

 

On a side note, I think it's hilarious that people have been complaining to Intel for needing a Kaby Lake CPU and 200 series motherboard.  They're essentially mad that the technology wasn't integrated before it was invented.

You could already do the exact same thing with Intel SRT.

 

Nobody used that either.

 

22 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

It takes more than an M.2 port to support Optane drives.  It takes a CPU and motherboard capable of understanding how to manage the data entirely independent of the OS.  Optane and NVMe are NOT the same thing.  There is a reason that this is just now possible.  I'm done trying to explain it to you though.

How to manage the data is a problem that was solved years ago. Intel launched SRT in 2011.

[JoostinOnline]

7 hours ago, Sakkura said:

You could already do the exact same thing with Intel SRT.

 

Nobody used that either.

 

How to manage the data is a problem that was solved years ago. Intel launched SRT in 2011.

Optane seems like a much improved version of SRT. You don't have to set up anything in RAID mode (as far as I can tell).  On top of that, it wasn't as widely advertised. Intel is making their own drives this time. They're controlling the market.

 

SSD's were ridiculously expensive back then too.

[Sakkura]

33 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Optane seems like a much improved version of SRT. You don't have to set up anything in RAID mode (as far as I can tell).  On top of that, it wasn't as widely advertised. Intel is making their own drives this time. They're controlling the market.

 

SSD's were ridiculously expensive back then too.

It still requires RAID mode. Intel SRT was widely advertised at the time. It just kinda failed.

 

Intel were making their own drives back then too. They've made SSDs for ages. Also, the SSDs for SRT caching were not very expensive. The Intel SSD 311 they recommended for SRT cost $100 or so (and there were cheaper options). A little more than these Optane Memory drives today, but then it has been 6 years.

[JoostinOnline]

11 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

It still requires RAID mode. Intel SRT was widely advertised at the time. It just kinda failed.

 

Intel were making their own drives back then too. They've made SSDs for ages. Also, the SSDs for SRT caching were not very expensive. The Intel SSD 311 they recommended for SRT cost $100 or so (and there were cheaper options). A little more than these Optane Memory drives today, but then it has been 6 years.

In the videos people just insert the drive.  If it was RAID, you'd need to do a fresh install of Windows.

 

And by "making their own" I meant, at least from appearance, only Intel's drives will work.  Given that there are Optane-specific drives, it's logical that a regular one wouldn't work.  Sorry I wasn't clear.

 

Btw, I know it's possible that I'm wrong.  There isn't much information right now (besides Intel paying people to say "it's the greatest thing ever" when it clearly isn't), but these are my deductions.

[ARikozuM]

10 hours ago, WereCat said:

snip

Optane is only for 200-series chipsets. 

 

@Spork829 The appeal of Optane is for those users who put programs into their HDDs (games, programs, etc) that can't afford to buy an SSD for those things (games come to mind). By caching the most used programs they can boot much faster and at lower latency (seek times, IOPS) than SSDs. 

[Spenser1337]

I'd buy it if it worked with z97

[Sakkura]

11 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

In the videos people just insert the drive.  If it was RAID, you'd need to do a fresh install of Windows.

 

And by "making their own" I meant, at least from appearance, only Intel's drives will work.  Given that there are Optane-specific drives, it's logical that a regular one wouldn't work.  Sorry I wasn't clear.

 

Btw, I know it's possible that I'm wrong.  There isn't much information right now (besides Intel paying people to say "it's the greatest thing ever" when it clearly isn't), but these are my deductions.

According to Anandtech:

 

Quote

Optane Memory caching is currently only supported on Windows 10 64-bit and only for the boot volume. Booting from a cached volume requires that the chipset's storage controller be in RAID mode rather than AHCI mode so that the cache drive will not be accessible as a standard NVMe drive and is instead remapped to only be accessible to Intel's drivers through the storage controller.

 

[ARikozuM]

9 hours ago, Spork829 said:

Exactly, it's controlled by CPU/MB, which have supported M.2 and NVME for the last few generations. The new tech is 3DXPoint, which interfaces with the other hardware through these already existing standards. Therefore it could easily work and very well might with some BIOS mods, we'll have to wait and see.

Your BIOS/UEFI have to support the tech. This is why hot-swap SATA (as an old example) isn't available on every board.

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

According to Anandtech:

 

 

Damn.  That means videos have been bullshitting us.   They're leaving out the part where you have to reinstall Windows.

[Orangeator]

7 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Damn.  That means videos have been bullshitting us.   They're leaving out the part where you have to reinstall Windows.

Yep that is bullshit, Linus should have mentioned this in his video. Kinda of bothers me that he didn't... I really hope that it was because he just didn't know.

[JoostinOnline]

4 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

Yep that is bullshit, Linus should have mentioned this in his video. Kinda of bothers me that he didn't... I really hope that it was because he just didn't know.

I doubt he didn't.  Go to the 5 minute mark on here:

He puts it in himself.

[Spork829]

9 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

has anyone mentioned database servers running 5400rpm drives?

You would need a very big optane drive for that. It has plenty of uses in other settings such as that, but I'm asking who is going to buy specifically the ones shown in the LTT video.

[Bcat00]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

Optane is only for 200-series chipsets. 

 

@Spork829 The appeal of Optane is for those users who put programs into their HDDs (games, programs, etc) that can't afford to buy an SSD for those things (games come to mind). By caching the most used programs they can boot much faster and at lower latency (seek times, IOPS) than SSDs. 

I highly doubt anyone that can afford a Kabylake cpu is hard pressed for money to get a 500g/1TB SSD. 

 

If they are hard pressed for money then the builder or whoever chose the parts need to redo their list.

[Sniperfox47]

Just to clarify: Optane System Accelerators (the 16/32GB cache) do not have much benefit for enthusiast users building desktop machines.

 

The two places where they shine are:

 

A) Joe Consumer who buys a computer and installs everything to the default C directory because they don't know or care enough to change it. A big hard drive with Optane is probably going to be more desirable for storing pictures and movies on than a super expensive or tiny SSD, because of the added complication of trying to manage a second drive.

 

B)  Jane Consumer who's buying a laptop and needs decent storage space, but still wants snappy performance.

 

Laptops and general consumer systems are the two big markets for this tech, not enthusiast desktops.