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Intel Unveils Optane SSD DC P4800X Drive That Can Act As Cache Or Storage (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Intel unveiled its first SSD product that will leverage 3D Xpoint memory technology, the new Optane SSD DC P4800X. The Intel SSD DC P4800X resembles some of Intel's previous enterprise storage products, but this product is all new, from its controller to its 3D Xpoint storage media that was co-developed with Micron. The drive's sequential throughput isn't impressive versus other high-end, enterprise NVMe storage products, but the Intel Optane SSD DX P4800X shines at very low queue depths with high random 4kB IO throughput, where NAND flash-based storage products tend to falter. The drive's endurance is also exceptionally high, rated for 30 drive writes per day or 12.3 Petabytes Written. Intel provided some performance data comparing its SSD SC P3700 NAND drive to the Optane SSD DC P4800X in a few different scenarios. This test shows read IO latency with the drive under load, and not only is the P4800X's read IO latency significantly lower, but it is very consistent regardless of load. With a 70/30 mixed read write workload, the Optane SSD DC P4800X also offers between 5 and 8x better performance versus standard NVMe drives. The 375GB Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X add-in-card will be priced at $1520, which is roughly three times the cost per gigabyte of Intel's high-end SSD DC P3700. In the short term, expect Intel Optane solid state drives to command a premium. As availability ramps up, however, prices will likely come down.
Stay away from Xpoint (Optane) products for a while.
They're far, far off their initial promises, which points to manufacturing issues.
http://semiaccurate.com/2016/0...
This post is a little late, but it's still pretty good.
When are we going to get drives that are just a bunch of blocks so that we can do our own wear and use leveling? Why should I trust a tiny computer on the SSD when I've got one that can do far more on the other end of the SATA line?
Intel Unveils Optane SSD DC P4800X Drive That Can Act As Cache Or Storage
I might be missing something, but if you're going to mention that it can act as cache it would be nice to include something about that bit in the summary.
No-one reads TFA anyway, of course, but in this case it's counter-blocked because I'm using uBlock, so I'm doubly put off.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Intels claims are rather exaggerated. Their claims have already been torn apart on numerous tech forums. At best we're talking only a ~3-5x reduction in QD1 latency and the intentionally omit vital information in the specs to force everyone to guess what the actual durability of the XPoint devices is. They say '12PB' of durability for the 375GB part but refuse to tell us how much overprovisioning they do. They say '30 drive writes per day' without tellling us what the warrenty will be.
In fact, over the last 6 months Intel has walked back their claims by orders of magnitude, to the point now where they don't even claim to be bandwidth competitive. They focus on low queue depths and and play fast and loose with the stats they supply.
For example, their QOS guarantee is only 60uS 4KB (99.999%) random access latency and in the same breath they talk about being orders of magnitude faster than NAND NVMe devices. They fail to mention that, for example, the Samsung NVMe devices also typically run around ~60-70uS QD1 latencies. Then Intel mumbles about 10uS latencies but bandies about large factors of improvement over NAND NVMe devices, far larger than the 6:1 one gets simply assuming 10uS vs 60uS.
Then they go on to say that they will have a NVDIMM form for the device later this year, with much faster access times (since in the NVMe form factor access times are constricted by the PCIe bus and block I/O protocol). But with potentially only 33,000 rewrite cycles per cell to failure that's seriously problematic. (And that's the best guess, since Intel won't actually tell us what the cell durability is).
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The price point is way too high for what XPoint in the NVMe format appears to actually be capable of doing. The metrics look impossible for a NVDIMM form later this year. Literally we are supposed to actually buy the thing to get actual performance metrics for it? I don't think so.
Its insane. This is probably the biggest marketing failure Intel has ever had. Don't they realize that nobody is being fooled by their crap specs?
-Matt
This seems like a particularly dumb idea. Wouldn't it be better to just add more RAM?
PCI-E X2-X4 is a lot faster then sata.
That's all. With the numerous changes of hands and lack of focus, /. has become a non-player in the space of "news." Turn off the auto-renew on the domain and die with a bit of dignity left.
A wise man once said;
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
XPoint is well... pointless. It can't compete with MRAM and by the time it matures enough (If it matures enough) to substitute flash in any kind of significant way MRAM is likely to have already taken over.
MRAM has effectively infinite read/write endurance, high density and performance characteristics of static ram.
XPoint even if executed perfectly has only a narrow window in which it can hope to remain relevant.
remember Fusion IO drives, those used to be B1tch quick, but had a habbit of burning up..
I wonder how these stack up with regard to performance against each other?
Hm,m..
Is there any way we can banish xx.xxx (or even worse, xx xxx) notation?
It is incredible that the world doesn't have a single standard for numbers (not counting scientific notation, which is something different, and btw rarely used).
How are we supposed to differentiate 33.000 (i.e. 33 thousand) from 33.000 (33, to an accuracy of 3 decimals)?
We can go to the moon, but can't state numbers unambiguously. Mind officially blown...
I come here for the love