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Intel Promises 'Optane' SSDs Based On Technology Faster Than Flash In 2016

Posted by Soulskill on from the harder-better-faster-stronger dept.

holy_calamity writes: Intel today announced that it will introduce SSDs based on a new non-volatile memory that is significantly faster than flash in 2016. A prototype was shown operating at around seven times as fast as a high-end SSD available today. Intel's new 3D Xpoint memory technology was developed in collaboration with Micron and is said to be capable of operating as much as 1000 times faster than flash. Scant details have been released, but the technology has similarities with the RRAM and memristor technologies being persued by other companies.

13 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. But, but... by CCarrot · · Score: 3, Funny

    He's the fastest man alive! Ain't nobody faster than the Flash!

    They lie...

    --
    "I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
    1. Re:But, but... by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Funny

      Too bad Flash is agonizing.

  2. Price point? by mark-t · · Score: 2

    They use the word "affordable" in such a way that leads me to suspect they are talking more about what a large company's version of "affordable" would be as opposed to someone who has to live on a somewhat more limited budget.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:Price point? by jcr · · Score: 2

      The largest storage users are, if anything, more price-sensitive than consumers are when it comes to $/terabyte. I would expect Intel to introduce this technology at prices similar to Flash memory, and for it to fall according to the Moore's law curve, just like any other semiconductor product.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Price point? by swb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I read the TFA for a change and it said that the drives would be available in lightweight laptops. There was a Slashdot article about this technology when it was announced and there was speculation about whether it was a cache technology or a direct storage medium.

      TFA said it would be for enterprise storage *and* laptops, so its likely means it's a "drive" and that it will likely be more or less affordable or it wouldn't go into laptops. The only question is how fast, TFA said the demo was only 7x current flash but maybe faster at introduction in 2016.

      I think the original story said it was far more durable than flash now, and if TFA article is to be believed about use in enterprise storage it could really shake things up. Vendors now make a big deal out of fancy tiering schemes, charging two arms and a leg for a few SSDs and fancy software to keep quiet data on their only slightly cheaper nearline disks. What's the point if you can do 100% of this with drives faster than flash but cheap enough to go into laptops?

  3. But what will they call the consumer devices? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 4, Funny

    You can't call them "flash drives" if it isn't flash memory, can you? We need a name that conveys the increased speed, and that maybe plays up the 3D aspect, where capacity can grow by expansion along the Z axis as well as the traditional X and Y dimensions.

    I know! They can call them "Zip drives"!

    1. Re:But what will they call the consumer devices? by viperidaenz · · Score: 3, Funny

      They can call them Warp Drives

    2. Re:But what will they call the consumer devices? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Funny

      How about "cattle drives"? According to unnamed sources, we're all cows.

      Moo?

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  4. A few more links by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 2

    TFA was very short on detail, so I went looking for more. Unfortunately, there seems not to be much more out there - everyone is reporting on the same short-on-detail presentation. Here's a few which seemed to me to have something to add:
    kitguru has more pictures
    pcworld has pictures of actual silicon (not that it has any visible detail)
    digitaltrends has some interesting commentary (last two paragraphs).

    --
    Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
  5. This will be the death of mechanical hard drives by Theovon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you look at Newegg and Amazon reviews, you'll find that perhaps the most reliable drives are 1TB in capacity and somewhat behind the cutting edge. Sure, you can get 6TB drives, but they're ticking timebombs. They have unacceptably high failure rates. As such, we're already on course for flash SSDs to overtake mechanical drives, because a 1TB SSD is approaching the price of an enterprise mechanical drive. The instant an even cheaper alternative comes out, mechanical drives are dead. They won't be cheaper by the megabyte anymore, and you can't trust them. Manufacturers COULD try to make them more reliable, but that would require more testing of individual units before shipping, which would increases costs even further. Indeed, the only reason mechanical drives are as cheap as they are is because MANUFACTURERS DO NOT TEST THEIR DRIVES. They are specifically designed so that they don't NEED to be tested. They have all kinds of failsafe mechanisms, vibration management, power management, temperature management, sector remapping, and they're over-engineered. A drive can be half broken, but you won't know because it's likely to keep working just fine. The ones that are DOA or die right away are really the worst of the lot and far more broken than you realize. The designers put all their efforts in at design time so as to cut manufacturing costs. But the end is very very near.

  6. Re:Still need RAM by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2

    We had that 30 years ago, with our 64KiB RAM computers. You can't swap out to an audio tape.

  7. Re:Dirty branding by FranTaylor · · Score: 2

    Don't they know it's not cool nowadays to be associated with gasoline?

    Performance studies indicate that you want the highest flash point

  8. Re:Still need RAM by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

    Memory management would be tougher because now you're using the same device for both long-term storage (which still requires file systems and all the usual stuff) and working RAM (which needs to be directly accessible by the CPU without any sort of thing like a filesystem). Dynamically sharing the two doesn't sound simple to me. Certainly no simpler than managing what pages get swapped in or out.

    A solved problem, actually, besides magnetic core memory way back when. Many devices in the 80s and 90s used RAM as both working memory AND storage memory, and the fancier ones even let you set the partition - they would come with maybe 1MB of RAM, and you could set it for 640kiB of working RAM and 384kiB of storage, and so forth. (A lot of these were palmtop PCs that ran some MS-DOS compatible OS).

    It's the reason why we have execute-in-place - these devices with 1-2-4MB of RAM, some of it used for working memory, while others are used for storage, and the main OS and applications stored in ROM.