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Intel Optane cache drive - 1st impressions

zMeul

It's cool... for older systems. Unfortunately, only available for kaby lake. I would love to have used this on my brothers older pc. Oh well.

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15 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

But let's say a user like me goes that route. How is that going to help through extremely annoying shit like GTA V loading times on a mechanical? 

 

Given the prices of 500gb SSDs and such it hardly seems worth the trouble.

See my long quote above for arguably the only use case. Replacing large TLC-shit ssds with even larger and probably similarish performing optane+HDD.

 

Quote

So not saying this is a good argument, but suppose you are a gamer and content consumer. You probably want more than just 256GB or even 500GB of storage. A 1TB meh SSD will cost you something like 250 dollars atm (god NAND prices suck ATM, got my 960GB for 179.99), and for basically same price you can get 32GB optane and a 6TB X300 HDD. (250 vs 260 dollars but still). And that is assuming you went with a "not very good TLC" SSD (A better MX300 costs 290 dollars and the 850 Evo costs a whopping 330 dollars) which honestly might preform worse for most day to day tasks than optane+HDD based on optane's truly untouchable latencies right now.

 

Now admittedly, this is a pretty damn fringe use case, and someone who can get by on 500 GB or less should basically always just go SSD only instead.

 

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8 minutes ago, zMeul said:

aren't you funny?

you speak of 300MB/s transfer speeds and you ask me for screenshots? how about you .. eh

 

the best case scenario:

  • Seagate ST1000DX001 nc0H615.png
21 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

That's not an answer.  Show me a screenshot, I'm curious.  And saturating SATA would make it a high end SATA drive.  SSHD's usually show around 300MB/s on sequential speeds in my experience.

 

And you could dial back on the exclamation points, as well as accusing me of "speaking from hearsay".

 

Adding in further comparison. Here is my results from a decent desktop HDD (an oldish now 3TB HGST NAS drive, top left), a meh old SSD (bottom right), and an 850 EVO (top right):

 

58fe84908be3b_HardDriveComparisonsNew.thumb.png.37722ff727f38bc6e46da417e2af1978.png

 

 

Note how outside of my Randoms (which is a nice improvement admittedly) the "good" SSHD provides basically the same results as my stock HDD.

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Just now, zMeul said:

aren't you funny?

you speak of 300MB/s transfer speeds and you ask me for screenshots? how about you .. eh

 

the best case scenario:

  • Seagate ST1000DX001 nc0H615.png
  • 850EVO gIobZ0Y.png

The hell are you doing 50MB tests for?  You should at least be doing 1GB.

 

But even though you're kind of at the low end, it's still true.  Those are waaaaay higher than they'd be on a regular HDD.  4K read speeds should be 1MB/s or less.  It's also not really fair to compare it to the highest end SATA SSD available.

 

Here's mine

Toshiba.png.20a3cdf98057018859b72f76ec8f89cc.png

 

Make sure to quote or tag me (@JoostinOnline) or I won't see your response!

PSU Tier List  |  The Real Reason Delidding Improves Temperatures"2K" does not mean 2560×1440 

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1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

The hell are you doing 50MB tests for?  You should at least be doing 1GB.

to show the best perf and be sure it engages the caching

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2 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

The hell are you doing 50MB tests for?  You should at least be doing 1GB.

 

But even though you're kind of at the low end, it's still true.  Those are waaaaay higher than they'd be on a regular HDD.  4K read speeds should be 1MB/s or less.  It's also not really fair to compare it to the highest end SATA SSD available.

 

Here's mine

Toshiba.png.20a3cdf98057018859b72f76ec8f89cc.png

 

See above against my "regular HDD". The 4K reads are an order of magnitude better, but still a factor of 2-10 worse than a not terribad SSD.

 

But the nice thing about optane is that is rocks the shit out of even really good SATA SSDs at 4K Q1.

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5 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

See above against my "regular HDD". The 4K reads are an order of magnitude better, but still a factor of 2-10 worse than a not terribad SSD.

 

But the nice thing about optane is that is rocks the shit out of even really good SATA SSDs at 4K Q1.

I think that @zMeul thinks I've been saying Optane isn't good.  Seems pretty cool to me.  I'm just a little speculative about how much those represent real world performance.  It doesn't take too long in the tech world to realize that things usually aren't as good as they seem.

 

I'm kind of tired of his hostility though, so I think I'm done with the conversation.

Make sure to quote or tag me (@JoostinOnline) or I won't see your response!

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2 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I think that @zMeul thinks I've been saying Optane isn't good.  Seems pretty cool to me.  I'm just a little speculative about how much those represent real world performance.  It doesn't take too long in the tech world to realize that things usually aren't as good as they seem.

Actually I think @zMeul generally agrees Optane sucks. More than he should. He just thinks (as he should) that standard SSHDs also suck, and worse. A while back I made a post about the only realistic situation I personally think one is worth it.

 

also.... my 850 evo two years and much use later... Not sure if I like the degradation level or not. 

 

Capture.PNG.9f45a33ea4948ae3bf410773b73d1427.PNG

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Just now, Curufinwe_wins said:

Actually I think @zMeul generally agrees Optane sucks.

wrong ;)

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1 minute ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Actually I think @zMeul generally agrees Optane sucks. More than he should. He just thinks (as he should) that standard SSHDs also suck, and worse. A while back I made a post about the only realistic situation I personally think one is worth it.

Well SSHD's do suck.  Advertisers use the fact that they can fool benchmarks make them sound much better.

Make sure to quote or tag me (@JoostinOnline) or I won't see your response!

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Just now, zMeul said:

wrong ;)

Oops, my bad lol.

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Just now, JoostinOnline said:

I think that @zMeul thinks I've been saying Optane isn't good.  Seems pretty cool to me.  I'm just a little speculative about how much those represent real world performance.  It doesn't take too long in the tech world to realize that things usually aren't as good as they seem.

Yeah. I've been the one saying it's not good, mostly because it's not good, lol. My point is relatively simple: Ultra-thins are not using 2.5 inch drives anyways, so they won't have any spinners that would require a fast cache. Conventional laptops do have 2.5 inch drives, but would also require you to utilize your M.2 slot (specifically one wired to be an Optane slot) for one, which would potentially limit your options heavily and might even prevent you from using an SSD entirely if there are not multiple M.2's or 2.5 inch bays. Desktop users won't even care, as it's not even a matter of physical space, and more so a matter of cost. The many platforms that do not have Optane support, outnumber the current single platform that does have Optane support, and for that vast majority, investing your money in ram or a larger SSD to cache your drive, makes more sense than upgrading your entire platform.

 

In it's current form, Optane is far too niche to matter. It takes a very specific scenario for Optane to even be semi-useful, and even then, one could still use an alternative solution to solve the same problem. Optane? More like... OptLAME. Man, I am funny.

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On 1/2/2017 at 9:32 PM, MageTank said:

Sometimes, we all need a little inspiration.

 

 

 

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Just now, MageTank said:

Yeah. I've been the one saying it's not good, mostly because it's not good, lol. My point is relatively simple: Ultra-thins are not using 2.5 inch drives anyways, so they won't have any spinners that would require a fast cache. Conventional laptops do have 2.5 inch drives, but would also require you to utilize your M.2 slot (specifically one wired to be an Optane slot) for one, which would potentially limit your options heavily and might even prevent you from using an SSD entirely if there are not multiple M.2's or 2.5 inch bays. Desktop users won't even care, as it's not even a matter of physical space, and more so a matter of cost. The many platforms that do not have Optane support, outnumber the current single platform that does have Optane support, and for that vast majority, investing your money in ram or a larger SSD to cache your drive, makes more sense than upgrading your entire platform.

 

In it's current form, Optane is far too niche to matter. It takes a very specific scenario for Optane to even be semi-useful, and even then, one could still use an alternative solution to solve the same problem. Optane? More like... OptLAME. Man, I am funny.

What I can't figure out is if you have to set it up in RAID like with RST.  In Linus's video he suggested you just stick it in and it works, but we didn't actually see it.  Using RAID would require a fresh Windows install.

Make sure to quote or tag me (@JoostinOnline) or I won't see your response!

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I want to be able to use it as a super fast dedicated drive 

My system-Core i7 6950X, AsusX99 DeluxeII, 128gb Crucial DDR4, Corsair 900D Titan X, Asus Thunderbolt EXII Card,Quadro M4000,Intel X540 network card

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4 hours ago, MageTank said:

Optane? More like... OptLAME. Man, I am funny.

Pro tip: Do not ever pull a Barbara again. Just don't.

Read the community standards; it's like a guide on how to not be a moron.

 

Gerdauf's Law: Each and every human being, without exception, is the direct carbon copy of the types of people that he/she bitterly opposes.

Remember, calling facts opinions does not ever make the facts opinions, no matter what nonsense you pull.

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6 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Pro tip: Do not ever pull a Barbara again. Just don't.

I have no idea what that is, but I promise I won't do that again, lol. 

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Does memory speed impact gaming performance? Click here to find out!

On 1/2/2017 at 9:32 PM, MageTank said:

Sometimes, we all need a little inspiration.

 

 

 

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Seems like Optane was overhyped as fuck.

Might not be as big of a failure as SSHDs or SRT since the price is much lower, but I really don't see the point of it. Not even for low end builds.

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8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Seems like Optane was overhyped as fuck.

Might not be as big of a failure as SSHDs or SRT since the price is much lower, but I really don't see the point of it. Not even for low end builds.

What?!?!?!

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Does memory speed impact gaming performance? Click here to find out!

On 1/2/2017 at 9:32 PM, MageTank said:

Sometimes, we all need a little inspiration.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, MageTank said:

What?!?!?!

Maybe I am missing something, but I don't get the point.

Whenever I build new computers I just include an SSD. I would not build a brad new system without an SSD today (especially not since it only works on Kaby Lake i3, i5 and i7). Sure this can make a big difference if you only got a HDD, but how many people will

1) Have a Kaby Lake system where this will work.

2) Only has a HDD.

3) Want to spend 40-80 dollars, but no more than that.

4) Don't want a separate SSD.

 

Not to mention that there are still some issues with it.

 

 

When we start seeing 250GB, 500GB and 1TB versions of Optane drives reach consumers then I might get a bit more excited, but this caching use-case seems kind of dumb to me.

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Intel Optane - TheSSDReview: http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/ngff-m-2/intel-optane-memory-module-review-32gb-every-pc-user-know/

Quote

Our review isn’t without some ideas and concerns with respect to Intel Optane Memory.  Two things we discovered during testing were how much more beneficial it may have been to include a higher capacity version, at least to 64GB, as well as to increase the drives write performance.  Intel has limited it to that write speed for a reason, that of which we don’t understand.  As well, there still remains an issue of compatibility for those that haven’t the 200 series motherboard, Intel 7th Gen CPU and even Windows 10. We believe this group remains to be a very large segment of desktop owners, perhaps as high as 95%; NVELO was on the right track here.

 

Lastly, as much as I knew about Intel Optane, I never expected this.  Within a week, I have seen validation of how Intel 3D XPoint will change the industry with their enterprise DC P4800x and this introduction tackles a huge gap in the storage industry with respect to hard drives.  Would I still take a pure SSD over Intel Optane Memory.  Yes, I would but that becomes very costly in terms of high-capacity needs.  A hard drive with Intel Optane will give you both performance and capacity. I must admit…seeing a caching SSD work at speeds up to 1.4GB/s data transfer, as well as at 204MB/s low 4K read performance, leaves me in awe of what Intel just did…. and what they are now capable of.  They disrupted an industry and nobody expected it.  To think, both the 16GB and 32GB versions have a warranty to cover 100GB in drive writes per day for five years.  We cannot wait to see what Intel has up their sleeve next!

 

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The results are not surprising. Like I said before, this is almost no different than hybrid drives and show similar results. 

 

I still dont see the point because its still cache that I cant even control. People tend to had HDDs just for storage and that means TBs of data. Windows alone will take up 1/3 of the 32gb drive if you reboot often then if you have to hope it caches the programs or files you want cached. 

 

When optaine is released as a full SSD then yeah it will be nice....right now its was of money. 

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I'm probably NOT the intended market for this as I don't see the need for this above the SSD I'm currently running in my system...  I honestly don't store more than maybe a couple hundred GB locally anyway.  Anything more than that can go to the NAS for mass storage.  What I think Intel really needs for this to become a thing is for system integrator to begin putting it into the new systems they're selling to people at low costs and for Intel to release a reasonably priced PCIe SSD version that is comparably priced to most other PCIe/NVME drives on the market.

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8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Maybe I am missing something, but I don't get the point.

Whenever I build new computers I just include an SSD. I would not build a brad new system without an SSD today (especially not since it only works on Kaby Lake i3, i5 and i7). Sure this can make a big difference if you only got a HDD, but how many people will

1) Have a Kaby Lake system where this will work.

2) Only has a HDD.

3) Want to spend 40-80 dollars, but no more than that.

4) Don't want a separate SSD.

 

Not to mention that there are still some issues with it.

 

 

When we start seeing 250GB, 500GB and 1TB versions of Optane drives reach consumers then I might get a bit more excited, but this caching use-case seems kind of dumb to me.

I completely agree. I was just making a zMeul joke with the "?!?!?!". As for whether or not Optane impresses a man like myself...

 

tJtAB6g.jpg

Kx8Jt3a.jpg

 

It has a long way to go, lol. 

 

My ram is caching my drive. My 850 evo is not magical.

My (incomplete) memory overclocking guide: 

 

Does memory speed impact gaming performance? Click here to find out!

On 1/2/2017 at 9:32 PM, MageTank said:

Sometimes, we all need a little inspiration.

 

 

 

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12 hours ago, MageTank said:

I have no idea what that is, but I promise I won't do that again, lol. 

It's a reference to a Rooster Teeth employee, Barbara Dunkleman, who makes annoyingly bad puns too often

Come Bloody Angel

Break off your chains

And look what I've found in the dirt.

 

Pale battered body

Seems she was struggling

Something is wrong with this world.

 

Fierce Bloody Angel

The blood is on your hands

Why did you come to this world?

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

The blood is on your hands.

 

The blood is on your hands!

 

Pyo.

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2 hours ago, MageTank said:

My ram is caching my drive. My 850 evo is not magical.

I was going to say. 850 EVO performing like that, "Mate you're dreaming" ;).

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