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

Accepted submission by takyon at 2017-03-29 23:32:22
Hardware

Intel has announced two 3D XPoint products [tomshardware.com] positioned as caches for consumer desktops. The M.2 modules [wikipedia.org] 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 [soylentnews.org]. Many more of us could find $44-75 to blow on this cache.


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