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Intel Announces Optane 16 GB and 32 GB M.2 Modules

posted by on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the heptane?-octane?-octarine? dept.

takyon writes:

Intel has announced two 3D XPoint products positioned as caches for consumer desktops. The M.2 modules store 16 GB for $44 ($2.75/GB) or 32 GB for $75 ($2.34/GB):

Intel just announced two new products that bring Optane technology to the consumer desktop. Optane is loosely defined as the company's products built with 3D XPoint technology, a next generation non-volatile memory structure built from the ground up to reduce latency. The new Optane Memory products will ship in two capacities (16GB and 32GB) and give users access to a whole new performance tier--as long as you have the supporting technology in place, mainly a 200-series chipset.

Pricing for Optane Memory M.2 2280 modules start at just $44 (16GB) and peak at $75 (32GB). The operating system recognizes the new products as addressable storage, just like a regular hard disk drive or solid-state drive. Intel told us that support for the drives as cache starts with the latest 200-series chipset products that feature an additional four PCI Express lanes over the older 100-series chipset.

The magic happens when you enable a "modified" version of Smart Response Technology and build a cache array with the Optane Memory standing invisibly in front of an HDD or SSD. The Optane Memory becomes a cache device that accelerates I/O for data retained in its memory structure from previous I/O requests.

Compare with the previous story about a 3D XPoint SSD for the enterprise: First Intel Optane 3D XPoint SSD Released: 375 GB for $1520. Many more of us could find $44-75 to blow on this cache.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:37PM (4 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:37PM (#486674) Journal

    Spend the money on standard DRAM (used as cache) and then hard-disc. It's mainly the booting that is slow which is a lesser problem with operating systems designed for always on.

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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday March 31 2017, @10:02AM (3 children)

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday March 31 2017, @10:02AM (#487010) Journal
    A lot of the low-power boards that you use in a home NAS are limited to 8 or 16GB of RAM. A cheap way of adding 32GB of very fast storage for L2 ARC would be quite nice for these.
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    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday March 31 2017, @10:11AM (2 children)

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday March 31 2017, @10:11AM (#487014) Journal

      Solution, buy a computer that can take more DRAM?

      There's also devices that takes standard DRAM and present it as a real harddisk with battery backup. Dunno if it's cheaper than flashdisk (SSD).

      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday March 31 2017, @11:44AM (1 child)

        by TheRaven (270) on Friday March 31 2017, @11:44AM (#487038) Journal
        Buying a computer that can take more DRAM isn't usually an option for a consumer NAS, because you're limited by size and power consumption. It's fine if you're building a bit SAN device, but for something always on in a living room you want a low-power CPU and a mini-ITX board.
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        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 01 2017, @02:10PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Saturday April 01 2017, @02:10PM (#487615) Journal

          Perhaps DRAM--SATA modules would be an option?

          (can be configured as swap etc to be used as memory)