anandtech Intel Optane cache drive - 1st impressions

[MageTank]

Just now, leadeater said:

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

Nah, just putting this ram overclock to use. Sadly, I am being bottlenecked by my stock 6700k. I just noticed that increasing the CPU clock speed, shows pretty drastic improvements in AS SSD benches. Not that it matters, I am well beyond the speeds of any other current storage standards that I use anyways. 

 

Wake me up when Optane is bigger, and not locked down to a single chipset. As it stands, it's just utterly worthless for the vast majority of people, and solves a problem very few people that invest in a modern platform, have. 

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, MageTank said:

I completely agree. I was just making a zMeul joke with the "?!?!?!".

Oh OK. I haven't read the thread so I thought you were serious and shocked that I did not find it that impressive useful.

 

9 hours ago, MageTank said:

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

I was just about to say something was wrong with your computer.

Is that part of the Samsung software? Maybe I should use it too. I got my RAM working again so I am back to having like 80% of my RAM not utilized.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Is that part of the Samsung software? Maybe I should use it too. I got my RAM working again so I am back to having like 80% of my RAM not utilized.

Yea it's part of Samsung Magician, RAPID Mode, but to be honest it's not really much use beyond giving you really impressive synthetic benchmarks, plus I need all my ram for the million Chrome tabs I like to have open lol.

[LAwLz]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

but to be honest it's not really much use beyond giving you really impressive synthetic benchmarks

So what you're saying is that it is really, really important? How else will I show the Internet how great my computer is?

Gonna download Samsung Magician as soon as I get home and enable it!

[MageTank]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Oh OK. I haven't read the thread so I thought you were serious and shocked that I did not find it that impressive useful.

 

I was just about to say something was wrong with your computer.

Is that part of the Samsung software? Maybe I should use it too. I got my RAM working again so I am back to having like 80% of my RAM not utilized.

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Yea it's part of Samsung Magician, RAPID Mode, but to be honest it's not really much use beyond giving you really impressive synthetic benchmarks, plus I need all my ram for the million Chrome tabs I like to have open lol.

Nope. It's Primocache. Samsung's software doesn't even come close. Primocache is a block-level cache program, which I run in write-deferred mode to prevent mundane writes from ever hitting my SSD's. This prolongs their lifespan, as SSD's lifespan is dependent on writes. As far as I know, Optane does not support write consolidation, so that's yet another reason for me to not care about these drives. 

 

I realize it is deceptive of me to call my Primocache usage a "ramdisk" when it's technically not a ramdisk per their own definition. They do list the differences between their software: https://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/knowledge-base/primo-ramdisk-vs-primocache.html

[PianoPlayer88Key]

So ... how about if your spinning-platter HDD is smaller than the Optane SSD?  Or would that not change test results all that much?

 

Then there's the issue of not being able to use said Optane SSD, as a system with only a 30 GB HDD is most likely pretty old by now (and may even lack PCI-E slots at all so an M.2 AIC adapter wouldn't help).  My 80GB WD has a 2001 date code, and my 250GB WD has a 2004 date.

 

If Optane is supposed to help lower-specced systems, then why make it only compatible with Kaby Lake-age systems?  Could Optane possibly have been able to speed up a system like this?

Or is that even too old?

 

 

Speaking of pagefiles, though ... I'd like to know ... how much performance difference does it make to put a pagefile on each of these?  In this scenario, you don't have enough RAM for what you're doing with the PC, and you're running multiple VMs, each with several open applications.

• 5400-rpm SMR-based HDD
• 7200rpm PMR-based HDD
• low-end SATA SSD (the ones that have write speeds around 150-300 mbps, and 4K around 20-40k)
• decent SATA SSD (Samsung 850 Evo, Crucial MX300, WD Blue, etc)
• budget NVMe SSD (Intel 600p)
• mid-range NVMe SSD (MyDigitalSSD BPX, Plextor M8Pe)
• high-end NVMe SSD (Samsung 960 Evo/Pro)
• enterprise SSD (Intel DC P3608 or similar)
• Optane SSD

I'm pretty sure having the pagefile on the HDDs would be the slowest by a large margin, but ... how much difference might there be between, say, an 850 Evo vs a 960 Evo, vs Optane, having the pagefile on them?  (Let's say you only have 2 or 4 GB of RAM installed, just for testing this, and are running enough things to make the RAM in a fully-loaded LGA2011-3 board choke. )

[leadeater]

41 minutes ago, MageTank said:

 

Nope. It's Primocache. Samsung's software doesn't even come close. Primocache is a block-level cache program, which I run in write-deferred mode to prevent mundane writes from ever hitting my SSD's. This prolongs their lifespan, as SSD's lifespan is dependent on writes. As far as I know, Optane does not support write consolidation, so that's yet another reason for me to not care about these drives. 

 

I realize it is deceptive of me to call my Primocache usage a "ramdisk" when it's technically not a ramdisk per their own definition. They do list the differences between their software: https://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/knowledge-base/primo-ramdisk-vs-primocache.html

Here I am ASSuming you were using RAPID mode since it was a Samsung SSD .

 

Looks like Primocache and Storage Spaces Multiresilient Virtual Disks can operate in a similar way in terms of writing, both can always write to the faster storage medium. Of course Primocache uses RAM and Storage Spaces uses SSD.  

[MoonSpot]

Would be interesting to get some IT security pros views on optane after they've got time to plug away at it.  The best place I see this is in office use in their cheap leased prebuilds to get performance oriented productivity boost;  But at the same time I've a hard time seeing any IT dept being keen on users and company files being cached on client machines in a non volatile manner if and when it can be avoided.  Might just look like another potential attack vector from their POV.

[mr.squishy]

I love the tech, and I think the pricing is awesome, but it has some serious limitations for the actual user market. If I'm correct, then you can only use it on a Z270 board with a Kaby lake chip? To me, that's a little unfortunate, and I know every piece of hardware has limitations, but I can't use it on my Z170/6700k setup, and that's a little disappointing. I wish there was another product that filled this space for older systems with m.2 slots.

[79wjd]

This was probably mentioned, but how does using an SSD as a cache drive compare to Optane?

[NumLock21]

Either they have not arrived yet or they are flying off the shelves. It's out of stock.