how do you set the mode for optane persistent memory

[jpmomo]

I will be receiving some pmem 200 optane dimms shortly and wanted to understand how to set the mode MM, AD etc for the chips. I am assuming this might be in the bios somewhere but not sure.

This will be on an ice lake system on a supermicro motherboard. I also have a few other systems but would like to first test it on the bench.
Thanks for any pointers.

 

[RolloZ170]

https://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/memory/Optane_PMem_200_Series_Config_X12QP_DP_UP.pdf

 

[jpmomo]

Thanks for the pointers. I was able to get it working. It was a little confusing as you needed to first configure them for app direct then set mem mode to 100%.

 

[jpmomo]

Does anyone know if it is possible to use pmem 100 with an ice lake CPU? I know the speed is different but I am wondering if it would be recognized and still work even if at lower performance.

 

[RolloZ170]

Does anyone know if it is possible to use pmem 100 with an ice lake CPU?

maybe. but all motherboards i know do NOT support this.

 

[jpmomo]

just a quick update as I have had a chance to test both the pmem 100 and 200 series in a couple of servers.
Rollo, you are correct (as usual) in that the 100 series throws a memory controller error when inserted into an ice lake server.

I tested in both a supermicro and dell ice lake server. I will be getting a second gen setup shortly to test the 100 series.

I did have another question as to why both the dell and supermicro defined 2 dimm mappings:
4x4 or 6x1
This translates into 4 normal dimms and 4 pmem. this mapping is for memory mode or app direct
The question I have is for the second config, 6x1. Both of these mappings were for an 8 slot motherboard. Why would the second mapping only use 7 of the 8 slots/channels? This mapping only seems to support app direct mode as well.

best,
jp

 

[NablaSquaredG]

Rollo, you are correct (as usual) in that the 100 series throws a memory controller error when inserted into an ice lake server.

Can you please try the other way round? 200 in Cascade Lake?

 

[jpmomo]

Will do when I have the cascade setup.

 

[RolloZ170]

Why would the second mapping only use 7 of the 8 slots/channels? This mapping only seems to support app direct mode as well.

7+1 will be unbalanced RAM config. not recommended.

 

[NablaSquaredG]

6 DIMM + 2 PMem is the standard, because you don't have enough space for more slots on normal (E-)ATX motherboards.

It works fine, in both memory and app direct mode

 

[jpmomo]

Thanks for the input. See below as to why I was asking:




Below is from the Dell's docs:



This seemed to suggest that I would need to leave one slot empty when configuring in AD mode with 8 total slots. I will try and see if I put 6+2 how it loads.

I am still trying to see how I can leverage AD mode with vmware esxi. Not sure if I can create a datastore with the AD pmem and any benefits to that.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[jpmomo]

Can you please try the other way round? 200 in Cascade Lake?

I received my cascade lake board (sm x11spa-t) and cpu (intel 8280L). On that setup, it did not like the pmem 200 series. It would beep when trying to boot/post and not allow the system to boot any further.

It did work ok with the pmem 100 series as expected. The nice thing about this specific mb is that it supports 3TBs of memory with only one socket!

supermicro makes an equivalent x12 series board that is supposed to support 4.5TB of pmem 200! now I just need to wait a little bit for cerberus to ship the case that fits these e-atx boards!

I have a few systems that are built around the m-atx ice lake boards that fit into the smaller cerberus cases. Those boards support up to 2TBs of pmem 200 memory.