Where is Optane?

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mbello

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Nov 14, 2016
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Hello, Optane was launched several months ago, I can find the m2 16GB/32GB SKUs available but nowhere I see the P4800X for sale.

Also, Micron has not released any product based on this technology yet.

Does anyone know the reasons/rumors behind this?
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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I see it in 5+ shops here, and all have the remark that shipping will take at least 3 weeks. Nobody has them in stock, "too expensive, too small".

My guess is that Intel & Micron supply the hyperscalers (they already have acces to pcie 4.0, sas4 and other new technology) who pay a lot more than normal enterprise for a few more iops.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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I see it in 5+ shops here, and all have the remark that shipping will take at least 3 weeks. Nobody has them in stock, "too expensive, too small".

My guess is that Intel & Micron supply the hyperscalers (they already have acces to pcie 4.0, sas4 and other new technology) who pay a lot more than normal enterprise for a few more iops.
 

mbello

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Nov 14, 2016
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If you are right, then Optane is a huge success and Intel is selling as many as they can make it.

Anyone less optimistic about the reason for the supply shortage? Yield maybe?

I heard rumor it is nowhere as reliable/durable as Intel designed them to be.
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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Look at their lower end newer gen NVME, same situation!

I think they're selling out quick + shortages in the factories.

I too would like to buy an Optane device, can't find them anywhere other than cheap consumer :(
 

Patrick

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My 32GB Optane M.2 modules finally arrived, pre-ordered on Amazon, between Portland and Austin trips last week.
 

mbello

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Nov 14, 2016
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Patrick, but can you find the P4800X available anywhere?

The consumer SKUs I could find, not widely available but still quite easy to buy.
 

Patrick

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Still very hard to find in channel. You can get in complete systems easily enough.
 

Tom5051

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Jan 18, 2017
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Isn't Optane Memory just a rehash of the Intel Turbo Memory cards that was supposed to be the great new speed-up feature of Windows Vista when running on crappy hardware? Reality was they did not much to help speed anything up.
Not sure why you guys are getting excited about these? The Samsung 950 and 960 Pros leave these for dead and don't cost significantly more. Maybe the Intel is more durable but I'd rather have speed and replace the drive every 3 years...
 
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i386

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Isn't Optane Memory just a rehash of the Intel Turbo Memory cards that was supposed to be the great new speed-up feature of Windows Vista when running on crappy hardware?
No, optane is intels name for 3dxpoint, a new type of non volatile memory.
Not sure why you guys are getting excited about these?
The p4800x can do ~ 95k iops @ 4k random write & qd1 and up to 550k iops @ 4k random read/write & qd16 (that's about 2 gbyte/s for random io!). It's the best cache device on the market.
 
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Tom5051

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No, optane is intels name for 3dxpoint, a new type of non volatile memory.

The p4800x can do ~ 95k iops @ 4k random write & qd1 and up to 550k iops @ 4k random read/write & qd16 (that's about 2 gbyte/s for random io!). It's the best cache device on the market.
Again I question the purpose of a cache memory in this day and age. Why not just get more DDR and RAM disk it? It's not like RAM costs $900 for 16MB like it did in 1996. That hurt my wallet!

Only thing I can see it useful for is a heavily thrashed disk array and by that stage, should be thinking about upgrading rather than band aid measures?
 

mbello

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Again I question the purpose of a cache memory in this day and age. Why not just get more DDR and RAM disk it? It's not like RAM costs $900 for 16MB like it did in 1996. That hurt my wallet!
Tom, you are way off here. Optane is a NVMe/PCIe storage device just like any SSD out there, but faster and with lower latency. It can be the main disk or whatever else one can do with a very fast NVMe/PCIe storage device (including - but not limited to - caching).

And, by the way, it can be used with any CPU, including older Intel CPUs, AMD CPUs and even ARM ones - as long as the platform supports NVMe or PCIe.

Maybe you read too much from Intel's press releases for Optane.
 
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Tom5051

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Like the Samsung 950 / 960 drives which are faster and have better IOPS than the Optane? Yer those. They don't cost much more either and you get a heap more space. 32GB is thoroughly useless.
 

ruffy91

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The 32GB Optane does 125k 4k random read at QD1 with a latency < 20 us. How much do your 950/960 SSDs deliver?
(Hint: its more than 5 times less. And the Latency about 5 times higher).
 
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Tom5051

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Jan 18, 2017
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Found a use for Optane yet, any real world speed increase for anything? Us old fellas got burnt by Intel with their turbo memory 10 years ago. Smells like the same shit to me.