Intel Optane

[pray4harambe]

hi guys,

i have a question regarding intel optane,

i am currently using a B250 Prime mobo by Asus which have 2 m.2 slots which one rated for optane memory. Is it possible to use 2 optane memory on both slots? any performance improvement?

[magnus2103]

I don´t think so 

[xentropa]

As for performance improvement....

 

I don't know if the NVME protocol is bottlenecking it, but the Optane crystal disk mark benchmarks leave a lot to be desired.  It doesn't beat Samsung 960 NVMe SSDs by a long shot, and its 10 times higher for its price/GB.

[KenjiUmino]

18 minutes ago, xentropa said:

As for performance improvement....

 

I don't know if the NVME protocol is bottlenecking it, but the Optane crystal disk mark benchmarks leave a lot to be desired.  It doesn't beat Samsung 960 NVMe SSDs by a long shot, and its 10 times higher for its price/GB.

isn't optane just for caching? or are real optane SSDs out already ?

[xentropa]

Just now, KenjiUmino said:

isn't optane just for caching? or are real optane SSDs out already ?

I saw the benchmarks for an Optane + HDD combo.  The CrystalDiskMark test was only for a 1GB file, so it wouldn't have saturated the cache.  To my knowledge, even as a cache drive, it still communicates using the NVMe protocol.

[KenjiUmino]

13 minutes ago, xentropa said:

I saw the benchmarks for an Optane + HDD combo.  The CrystalDiskMark test was only for a 1GB file, so it wouldn't have saturated the cache.  To my knowledge, even as a cache drive, it still communicates using the NVMe protocol.

the problem with "benchmarking" a cache is that a file has to be accessed more than one time to be even considered for chaching. and it only works in the read direction. 

 

the way crystal disk mark works (AFAIK) is: write a file, read it back, write new file, read back, - freshly written files are unlikely to be cached so crystal disk mark is pretty useless for benchmarking caches. caches also don't help random reads unless it is only about random reading files that are cached already. (and that's not what "random" means)

[xentropa]

8 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

the problem with "benchmarking" a cache is that a file has to be accessed more than one time to be even considered for chaching. and it only works in the read direction. 

 

the way crystal disk mark works (AFAIK) is: write a file, read it back, write new file, read back, - freshly written files are unlikely to be cached so it crystal disk mark is pretty useless for benchmarking caches. caches also don't help random reads unless it is only about random reading files that are cached already. 

Well, I am pretty sure a SATA HDD wouldn't have a 2.5 GBps random read speed or a 1.5 GBps random write by itself.

[pray4harambe]

As per  question, so far i know optane was used in caching. I dunno whether my 2nd M.2 slot support optane. If it does, i may only considering optane as an upgrade than an ssd. What's u guys thought?

[xentropa]

41 minutes ago, pray4harambe said:

As per  question, so far i know optane was used in caching. I dunno whether my 2nd M.2 slot support optane. If it does, i may only considering optane as an upgrade than an ssd. What's u guys thought?

Can it actually be used as a standalone drive?

 

I heard Optane only conforms to the JESD218B-01 standard for data retention.

 

https://www.jedec.org/document_search?search_api_views_fulltext=endurance

 

That standard only requires data to retain for at least 3 months while powered off.  Optane also uses a type of memory cell called Phase Change memory, which is not thermally stable as Flash or HDDs.  Over time, it is plausible that the 1/0 state of the cells be lost due to ambient heat.  I think this is why it is mainly marketed as a cache device.

[JacobFW]

8 hours ago, xentropa said:

Can it actually be used as a standalone drive?

 

I heard Optane only conforms to the JESD218B-01 standard for data retention.

 

https://www.jedec.org/document_search?search_api_views_fulltext=endurance

 

That standard only requires data to retain for at least 3 months while powered off.  Optane also uses a type of memory cell called Phase Change memory, which is not thermally stable as Flash or HDDs.  Over time, it is plausible that the 1/0 state of the cells be lost due to ambient heat.  I think this is why it is mainly marketed as a cache device.

Yes, it works as a standalone drive.