Intel Optane works fine on Linux

[Sniperfox47]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-optane-16gb&num=1

 

So Michael Larabel over at phoronix did some testing of a 16GB optane module on Linux and it worked just fine on it's own as a standalone nvme boot drive for Ubuntu. Bcache tests for caching are still incoming because he hasn't had time to play much, but he did some quick benchmarks on it.

 

Quote

I hadn't seen any Linux tests of Intel Optane to date, so was very curious how this new class of Intel storage is performing. My initial tests were done with an Intel Core i7 7700K Kabylake box with MSI Z270-A PRO motherboard. First I upgraded the BIOS on this motherboard for adding the Optane memory compatibility and then installed it into the M.2 slot. Optane is only supported by Kabylake (7th Gen) Intel CPUs and newer.

 

With the updated BIOS on this Kabylake motherboard, the Intel 16GB Optane memory worked just fine. When booting up a USB installation of Ubuntu 17.04 x86_64, the Intel Optane 16GB device was detected right away as an NVMe block device.

 

Raw performance of the drive in his tests as a boot drive put it slightly faster (~15%) than a 256GB 950 Pro for random reads.

 

Random writes were another story, putting it at roughly half the speed of the 950 Pro which shouldn't impact it's caching performance.

 

Keep in mind also that this is also the 16GB model so it's literally a single 128Gbit xPoint chip, vs the 16 128Gbit NAND chips in the 950 Pro. As the size of the drives hit 64GB (4 chips) and up they should be strictly better than the 950/960 by a pretty large margin assuming a decent controller.

 

Also keep in mind the tests that he did on the drive were also standard io benchmarks, and reflect more upon raw throughput and not the latency benefits of xPoint.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Raw performance of the drive in his tests as a boot drive put it slightly faster (~15%) than a 256GB 950 Pro for random reads.

This! This right here is exciting!

 

Anything that can reduce the time Displayfusion takes to load on startup is more time I can use to not wait.

[Misanthrope]

Optane in Linux + a SATA III SSD looks like a promising replacing for paying quite a bit more for a 950 pro or similar. Though probably not for long.

[Sniperfox47]

19 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Optane in Linux + a SATA III SSD looks like a promising replacing for paying quite a bit more for a 950 pro or similar. Though probably not for long.

Keep in mind if going for this option though to get the 32GB Optane drive or your write speed will be limited by the slow writes on the 16GB model. And if you don't use write-back mode you'll still write at the Sata SSD speed even then.

[leadeater]

33 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Also keep in mind the tests that he did on the drive were also standard io benchmarks, and reflect more upon raw throughput and not the latency benefits of xPoint.

Pitty since IOPs and latency are the key points to Optane, hopefully that gets tested.

[Sniperfox47]

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Pitty since IOPs and latency are the key points to Optane, hopefully that gets tested.

Yeah, looking forward to his tests throughout the week, will update the OP with more info when available. Was tested for iops, just at a higher queue depth.

[Godlygamer23]

58 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Raw performance of the drive in his tests as a boot drive put it slightly faster (~15%) than a 256GB 950 Pro for random reads.

I don't think I would consider that a slight performance lead. Anything around 15% higher is more significant than "slight."

[Sniperfox47]

8 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I don't think I would consider that a slight performance lead. Anything around 15% higher is more significant than "slight."

I guess so. It's about inline with the move from a 256GB 950 Pro up to a 512GB 950 Pro or 1TB 960 Pro though. It's no night and day difference. We'll see much bigger gaps as the number of xPoint chips scale for larger drives.

[RadiatingLight]

How come only Linux works? isn't this handled at a BIOS level? and if it's detected as an NVME device, then why does everyone say I can't install windows on one?

[Sniperfox47]

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

How come only Linux works? isn't this handled at a BIOS level? and if it's detected as an NVME device, then why does everyone say I can't install windows on one?

No idea *if* only linux works. All the other info I've seen with them being Windows exclusive, working only for boot drives, requiring Kaby Lake and RST/SRT has all been issued by Intel.

 

We'll have to see some reviews to know whether it can be used as a Windows Boot drive. Although a 16/32GB Windows boot drive seems really small.

[ARikozuM]

6 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

How come only Linux works? isn't this handled at a BIOS level? and if it's detected as an NVME device, then why does everyone say I can't install windows on one?

You can install Windows on it. People are misinformed. Windows 10 and Kaby Lake w/ appropriate chipset are required to utilize the caching function. Otherwise, it acts as a normal M.2 NVMe.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, Sniperfox47 said:

No idea *if* only linux works. All the other info I've seen with them being Windows exclusive, working only for boot drives, requiring Kaby Lake and RST/SRT has all been issued by Intel.

 

We'll have to see some reviews to know whether it can be used as a Windows Boot drive. Although a 16/32GB Windows boot drive seems really small.

32GB should be.. doable.

if you install all your programs on a D:/ drive, then maybe it could work.

[Sniperfox47]

Just now, RadiatingLight said:

32GB should be.. doable.

if you install all your programs on a D:/ drive, then maybe it could work.

Idk. wish Windows had better support for softlinks so I could hoard everything on my desktop without having to choose between either destroying my tiny SSD, or going through the nightmare of migrating my user directory to another disk...

[RadiatingLight]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

You can install Windows on it. People are misinformed. Windows 10 and Kaby Lake w/ appropriate chipset are required to utilize the caching function. Otherwise, it acts as a normal M.2 NVMe.

 

[vanished]

8 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

This! This right here is exciting!

 

Anything that can reduce the time Displayfusion takes to load on startup is more time I can use to not wait.

This, however, is not:

Quote

Random writes were another story, putting it at roughly half the speed of the 950 Pro

Why are these so slow in write?  

[vanished]

4 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Idk. wish Windows had better support for softlinks so I could hoard everything on my desktop without having to choose between either destroying my tiny SSD, or going through the nightmare of migrating my user directory to another disk...

You can move your "Desktop" folder to wherever

 

Beyond that, while it isn't beautiful, Windows and NTFS do support functioning symlinks - I've used them before for things including but not limited to Steam libraries.

 

Use the mklink /d command

[alexyy]

41 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

You can move your "Desktop" folder to wherever

 

Beyond that, while it isn't beautiful, Windows and NTFS do support functioning symlinks - I've used them before for things including but not limited to Steam libraries.

 

Use the mklink /d command

Can't be keeping yo steam games on your C drive.

[vanished]

Just now, alexyy said:

Can't be keeping yo steam games on your C drive.

Just putting them on another drive doesn't need this trickery, you can do that with libraries.  I was doing more complicated things

[alexyy]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

Just putting them on another drive doesn't need this trickery, you can do that with libraries.  I was doing more complicated things

I know just joking, 

[leadeater]

56 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Why are these so slow in write?  

Low queue depth, which is most desktop usage, Optane is much faster than NVMe NAND SSDs. When you start increasing the queue you can spread the I/O across the NAND chips giving a higher throughput but if you're doing lots of small things Optane will be faster. Will you actually notice, probably not.

[Sniperfox47]

2 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

You can move your "Desktop" folder to wherever

 

Beyond that, while it isn't beautiful, Windows and NTFS do support functioning symlinks - I've used them before for things including but not limited to Steam libraries.

 

Use the mklink /d command

Yeah, I've had some weird issues with the move desktop option in the past so I've avoided it, if you're vouching for it I'll give it another shot and see if it behaves itself a little better.

 

And yeah, I know it features softlinks\symlinks, that's why I said better support and not just support. Again in the past I've had weird issues when using them so I've kind of avoided them since.

[vanished]

8 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Yeah, I've had some weird issues with the move desktop option in the past so I've avoided it, if you're vouching for it I'll give it another shot and see if it behaves itself a little better.

 

And yeah, I know it features softlinks\symlinks, that's why I said better support and not just support. Again in the past I've had weird issues when using them so I've kind of avoided them since.

I can't guarantee it will work perfectly for everyone every time, but what I can say is I've done this move on almost all of my folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Saved Games, and Videos) and I haven't had any issues as a result.  Where I would worry is trying to move something like "C:\Users\<yourname>\AppData\Roaming" (or Local) since that has lots of config files, temp files, etc. which a) could interrupt the move or otherwise prevent it from completing successfully, which would be bad, or b) mess up programs that are hard coded to go to a certain path rather than check the environment variable.

 

On that topic though, one thing you'll have to watch out for is "remembered paths".  For example, if you've previously saved something to your desktop, and you then move this folder, make sure that the next time you open that program and go to save that your real desktop is selected, since it will likely have remembered the previous path, and will thus create a new "desktop" (not a real desktop, just a folder named that) on C again and then save to it.

[vanished]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Low queue depth, which is most desktop usage, Optane is much faster than NVMe NAND SSDs. When you start increasing the queue you can spread the I/O across the NAND chips giving a higher throughput but if you're doing lots of small things Optane will be faster. Will you actually notice, probably not.

ah, so it's just because this is a single (or very few) chip(s).  Yeah, I'm familiar with that behaviour in SSDs, I just thought maybe this was such a leap ahead that even despite having a lighter loadout it would out perform existing ones  

[The Benjamins]

10 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Just putting them on another drive doesn't need this trickery, you can do that with libraries.  I was doing more complicated things

would the mklink trick work to allow steam to run and install games from my NAS?

 

my NAS is D:\ but in steam i cant see that drive letter to add a folder to install games to.

 

If i ever do this I will have a 10Gb connection to it.

[zMeul]

"works fine" is actually disingenuous since the Intel Optane Memory m.2 module was built specifically as caching and not as a standalone SSD