EXPIRED ES intel Optane P4800X 750GB $450 on ebay, 2 available

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RchGrav

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Aug 21, 2015
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because you can get a new, current non-ES ssd for less
I don't think you can get optane for less..


ES is the only sticking point. (Disclaimer: I bought the one.)

I have a P3700 ES and it has been fully firmware upgradable... thats uncommon though for intel they are usually locked down.
 
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RDshift

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May 6, 2021
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I scored the other. I disagree on that pricing post - I can't find these for less than 1K for retail new for any variant, and this particular variant tends to be around 2300-2800 at first google.

This will be chia / first pool for unraid, backed by a larger nytro 3531.
 

RchGrav

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Aug 21, 2015
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I scored the other. I disagree on that pricing post - I can't find these for less than 1K for retail new for any variant, and this particular variant tends to be around 2300-2800 at first google.

This will be chia / first pool for unraid, backed by a larger nytro 3531.
Not following how the tiering is working w/ the nytro + optane.. and not sure what you mean by first pool for unraid.. Trying to picture in my head how you are using them
 

RDshift

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May 6, 2021
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First cache pool is the write tolerant Optane 750 GB with ~30 DWPD or better - IDK the figures off the top of my head.. Second pool for overflow is a much less write tolerant Nytro 1.6 TB with 3 DWPD. Then it hits the main storage - 100ish TB of spinning rust.
By doing this I can use the Optane to cache all the VM writes and a Chia plotter or two, with the Nytro catching any overflow as well as the written out plots
Unraid allows you to cache writes for shares, writing them out with the mover daily or as configured, as well as setting preferred locations for certain types of media, such as the VMs and (unraid) appdata, sometimes moving them to that preferred location depending upon configuration, or simply caching the writes.

It's certainly not optimized for the fastest possible use, but it does allow me to flatten out my write to disk curve by a lot on each form of media, and speed up the work I do in general - at least in theory. Let's hope it pans out because I refuse to destroy regular SSDs.

I rarely revise content written to disk, just the VMs, so this could work very well for me optimizing things with the limited resources I have.
 
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RchGrav

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I haven't looked at the tiering / caching in unraid, more familiar w/ FreeNAS. are you gonna plot on the cache pool?
 
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RchGrav

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it does allow me to flatten out my write to disk curve by a lot on each form of media, and speed up the work I do in general
I get it.. I have primocache on my desktop and I'm constantly changing the way my system caches read / delays writes based on what i'm doing moment by moment sometimes
 

NateS

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Apr 19, 2021
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ES is the only sticking point. (Disclaimer: I bought the one.)

I have a P3700 ES and it has been fully firmware upgradable... thats uncommon though for intel they are usually locked down.
On retail, Intel-branded drives, firmware updates should not be a problem in general. Possibly some of the OEM-customized ones are more locked down; I'm not sure.

For ES drives, FW update ability may be pretty hit and miss, and there's good reason for that. Sometimes, a new FW version may be incompatible with the old one, and you'd need manufacturer tools to format the drive to the way the new FW expects. Obviously we avoid this kind of breaking change once a product is released, but with engineering sample firmware, sometimes it happens.

Standard disclaimer: I work for Intel on Optane drives, but I'm not an official Optane support person, and my posts should not be taken as official statements by Intel. All opinions are my own.
 

wifiholic

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Mar 27, 2018
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I bought one from a previous small batch that this seller listed. It arrived as described and has been humming away in an NVMe bay on my R720 plotting Chia without any issues so far.
 
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RDshift

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May 6, 2021
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On retail, Intel-branded drives, firmware updates should not be a problem in general. Possibly some of the OEM-customized ones are more locked down; I'm not sure.

For ES drives, FW update ability may be pretty hit and miss, and there's good reason for that. Sometimes, a new FW version may be incompatible with the old one, and you'd need manufacturer tools to format the drive to the way the new FW expects. Obviously we avoid this kind of breaking change once a product is released, but with engineering sample firmware, sometimes it happens.

Standard disclaimer: I work for Intel on Optane drives, but I'm not an official Optane support person, and my posts should not be taken as official statements by Intel. All opinions are my own.
Thank you Nate, I really appreciate your professional insight! Optane and its potential for low latency use cases has really fascinated me since it's initial release. Though admittedly some of that was an unhealthy fascination with optimizing Plex loading times. :p
 

itronin

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Nov 24, 2018
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dbTH

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Apr 9, 2017
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The seller made me an offer lower than $350, but I didn't bite because of ES. It may be fine for non-critical data or homelab use, but it's quite risky to use it on a production server. But this Chia Mining thing really has driven all storage related components sky-high

For those who bought the drive, were you able to update the firmware?
 

blakwolf

Member
Apr 17, 2017
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First cache pool is the write tolerant Optane 750 GB with ~30 DWPD or better - IDK the figures off the top of my head.. Second pool for overflow is a much less write tolerant Nytro 1.6 TB with 3 DWPD. Then it hits the main storage - 100ish TB of spinning rust.
By doing this I can use the Optane to cache all the VM writes and a Chia plotter or two, with the Nytro catching any overflow as well as the written out plots
Unraid allows you to cache writes for shares, writing them out with the mover daily or as configured, as well as setting preferred locations for certain types of media, such as the VMs and (unraid) appdata, sometimes moving them to that preferred location depending upon configuration, or simply caching the writes.

It's certainly not optimized for the fastest possible use, but it does allow me to flatten out my write to disk curve by a lot on each form of media, and speed up the work I do in general - at least in theory. Let's hope it pans out because I refuse to destroy regular SSDs.

I rarely revise content written to disk, just the VMs, so this could work very well for me optimizing things with the limited resources I have.
So basically using these as NVRAM?