Can OG Optane module be used as regular NVMe drive?

[maxtch]

What I mean is the 16GB ones. I wonder if it can be used alone as a regular bootable storage device.

 

As of the question "what OS can you put in just 16GB," this is for a PC-based router, running Ubuntu Server 19.04, a headless distribution of Linux. Such headless Linux distributions tend to be very small - for example the installation on my current PC based router, also based on Ubuntu Server, takes less than 4GB on the system drive.

[Guest]

Yeah, I have an overabundance of them and use at least 2 for ESXi installs.

[maxtch]

3 minutes ago, Den-Fi said:

Yeah, I have an overabundance of them and use at least 2 for ESXi installs.

I am using those in servers to hold the OS. User data is either non-existent (for the router) or stored on separate devices (for the storage server.) I used to like ESXi until 802.3ad failed on me...

[porina]

Yes, but be aware of its performance characteristics, that a normal SSD might perform differently. The Optane Memory modules have great low queue depth random read performance, ok sequential reads for NVMe, but relatively low sustained write speed that even a SATA flash SSD would be faster if you were to do that much. So pick according to the workload.

[maxtch]

1 minute ago, porina said:

Yes, but be aware of its performance characteristics, that a normal SSD might perform differently. The Optane Memory modules have great low queue depth random read performance, ok sequential reads for NVMe, but relatively low sustained write speed that even a SATA flash SSD would be faster if you were to do that much. So pick according to the workload.

My system drive is rarely accessed when the system is operating normally. It is server use case after all, and all I need is something for the UEFI to boot off - even SD cards can work really. For the router it can almost function without local storage, and for the storage server actual user data is not on Optane at all. Logs are written to Optane, but that is a line per second at most.

[GoldenLag]

9 minutes ago, maxtch said:

Logs are written to Optane, but that is a line per second at most.

120GB m.2 drivers cost almost nothing, so i dont see why you would use optane instead of those.

 

But yes, optane can be used.

[maxtch]

1 minute ago, GoldenLag said:

120GB m.2 drivers cost almost nothing, so i dont see why you would use optane instead of those.

 

But yes, optane can be used.

Someone is dumping those 16GB Intel M10 modules on Taobao for US$8 each. Also Optane is just much more resistant to log writes (which often can result in whole memory page being erased multiple times when logs are being trickle fed to the drive.)

[porina]

Write endurance is a possible plus for Optane in this application, even more so if it handles write amplification better than flash. Still, $8 sounds too good to me, hope they're not fake  

[maxtch]

Well since I just bought one let's find out