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Optane Memory – A bridge between DRAM and storage
- bushin 10y agoI thought I could throw away my DRAM and SSD, but it looks like for now it's just another cache level.
- eightysixfour 10y agoI think it will be a bit different once they start selling DIMMs. I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out.
- blacksmith_tb 10y agoIt seems like that could be pretty useful in a laptop, if your RAM was nonvolatile, wake from sleep would be truly instantaneous, you'd think (and it would survive your battery dying).
- baq 10y agoyou still need to reinitialize devices; only RAM survives. it'd be no faster than current wake from suspend, but it'd be hibernation.
- andrewmcwatters 10y agoThis is also what I thought they were marketing. The day this happens, it'll be big.
- readams 10y agoThey're a long way from realizing the full potential of the technology. Right now they're hugely limited by the interconnect. Also, if they reach some of the goals they've been talking about, it might need differently-designed operating systems to really work.
- snuxoll 10y agoI mean, Single-Level-Storage is hardly a new concept - I don't think we need entirely new operating systems to gain benefits, but for more applications and enabling technologies to be designed around it. LMDB, for example, would be a great fit with Optane already. Really, anything that uses mmap() is.
- smlacy 10y agoQuite a bit of marketing-speak here on the official site, without a lot of technical details. I know the Optane SSD drives are fast -- is this just device-side driver software that allows you to virtually expand available "RAM" and mmap it to the SSD? Why just i7 CPUs? Is there a hardware component? "Just download and install the driver..." (Linux?)
- AdamJacobMuller 10y agoSeems like its some i3/i5/i7, only recent ones? Must be some hardware component to it that makes the SSD look like memory to the system, perhaps as another NUMA zone (could you have a huge NUMA zone with no CPU attached?)
- the8472 10y agoMaybe the CLWB instruction?
- misja111 10y agoWhat I understand of it, after skipping through all the marketing speak, is that the Optane Memory functions a cache for your SATA drive. The Optane cache is just a Optane SSD which uses some new and apparently faster 3D Nand technology. And about Linux; somewhere in the PDF with the technical details it states the requirement that your OS has to be 64 bit Windows ..
- wtallis 10y ago> "The Optane cache is just a Optane SSD which uses some new and apparently faster 3D Nand technology." Optane products use 3D XPoint memory, which is not 3D NAND flash memory or any other kind of flash memory. It's probably a phase change memory, but Intel won't say so we have to wait for Chipworks to put it under an electron microscope. The Optane Memory product for consumers is entirely centered around the use case of running Intel's SSD caching software for Windows, which requires a Skylake or newer chipset plus boot firmware that will only actually be available for Kaby Lake systems. The hardware feature they're relying on is a disgusting hack that Linux users want to stay far away from (and can, since there are generic caching solutions for Linux that work atop any block device).
- freeone3000 10y agoIt looks to be an accelerator cache for HDDs, but slower than an SSD, with fairly low capacity. And it requires a 7th gen intel processor, so this isn't a performance boost for older PCs either. Exactly who is this aimed at?
- jpalomaki 10y agoAt least Lenovo was supposed to offer these as option for some of their laptops. Maybe this makes sense if you need lots of space. Over 1TB SSDs are expensive.
- dguaraglia 10y agoData centers willing to provide dense storage instances?
- temuze 10y agoLooks faster than an SSD to me. From the FAQ: "Q4: Will Intel Optane memory also accelerate an SSD? If so how much? A: Yes. Intel Optane memory can be used to accelerate any type of SATA-based storage media, including SATA SSDs, However, the performance benefit of adding Intel Optane memory will be greater on slower storage devices like an HDD versus a relatively faster storage device like a SATA-SSD. Additional performance data is forthcoming" http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/optane-memory-faq.html http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-tech...
- codebook 10y agoI don't think GP is talking about SATA SSD. Based on the performance, definitely it is PCIe NVMe SSD ( 960 IMO )
- timothycrosley 10y agoIt's faster than SATA SSD but slower than most NVMe M.2 SSDs: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11227/intel-launches-optane-memory-m2-cache-ssds-for-client-market http://www.anandtech.com/show/11227/intel-launches-optane-me.... Because of when this was launched, and the fact it only works with newer processors that also support NVMe, by the time it is at all common place, so would M.2 SSDs, making it a weird concept. It's essentially the most expensive per GB NVMe drive, with worse performance, and some software to automate caching.
- krn1p4n1c 10y agoIsn't this just another go at Robson and SRT?
- monochromatic 10y agoA cache for spinning hard drives? Pass.
- Quequau 10y agoI think a lot of this next generation solid state storage level memory is going to wind up being ill suited for the dominant interconnect standards (e.g. DDR, SATA, or PCIe). I also really wonder if it isn't going to take a really long time for the relevant parts of the existing software stack to see serious development to effectively exploit this stuff.
- 2bluesc 10y agoAnandtech, as usual, has a good article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11227/intel-launches-optane-memory-m2-cache-ssds-for-client-market http://www.anandtech.com/show/11227/intel-launches-optane-me... > The Optane Memory products are squeezing into a relatively small niche for limited budgets that require a lot of storage and want the benefit of solid state performance without paying the full price of a boot SSD. Intel notes that Optane Memory caching can be used in front of hybrid drives and SATA SSDs, but the performance benefit will be smaller and these configurations are not expected to be common or cost effective. It doesn't sound that fast. Looks to be "slower" (throughput-wise) then modern NVMe drives (i.e. Evo 960 and obviously smaller) and clearly trying to bridge a price gap. Is the upside that it can act as an additional cache level without OS support? I remember the first time I used Intel Rapid Storage Tech (aka RST) ... it was also the last time as it's was convoluted with minimal (or no?) upside on Linux. As an "enthusiast" I'm assuming that my Linux desktop with plenty of RAM + NVMe backed lvmcache will perform better. I also assume that my laptop with reasonable RAM (because DDR (self)refresh sucks enough power to annoy me) + high performance NVMe drive also won't benefit. Is this just marketing fluff?
- 2bluesc 10y agoInteresting comment from Anandtech [0] > Keep in mind that consumer NVMe SSDs that boast throughput of 2GB/s or more generally do not reach their peak at low queue depth. Optane is supposed to be able to drive 1200MB/s read throughput at low queue depth (not sure why they listed QD4), so there is potential for some performance improvement here. Most consumer workloads never get out of low queue depth territory, so this could have some small real world benefit. Write throughput, however, is critically low. > More importantly, these Optane drive are gear more towards lowering latency than transferring large files. Where HDDs access the data on the order of 10s of mS and SSDs access data on the order of 1mS (give or take), Optane should be able to access data on the order of 1s - 10s of uS. Where Optane will be useful is high numbers of small file accesses (DLLs, library files, etc.). > That all said, I'd just as soon leave all the extra complications, compatibility issues, and inconsistencies on the table and get that 2 GB/s sdd that you mentioned until Intel figures out how to make these more compatible and easier to use without requiring a "golden setup". I don't want to buy a new W10, Kaby Lake, 200 series based system just to use one of these. My current W7/W10/Ubuntu, Skylake, 100 series system should work just fine for a good while yet. [0] http://www.anandtech.com/comments/11227/intel-launches-optane-memory-m2-cache-ssds-for-client-market/537799 http://www.anandtech.com/comments/11227/intel-launches-optan...
- bobbington 10y agoI think this is Intel's 3D Xpoint memory finally coming to market. It's supposed to be faster and more reliable than ssd
- wickedlogic 10y agoReaction to 2nd video: It is like a kitchen, and a panty, with a sous-chef which is like a conveyor belt. I mean if this runs ruby and also uses knife, how fast could this really be. ;)
- timvdalen 10y agoWas the entire pancake analogy a setup for the 'have your pancakes and eat them too' joke?
- codebook 10y agoThe only thing could get from Optane is QD1 performance. It is impressive (5x faster than current gen NVMe SSD). But everything else is just soso compared to NVMe SSD.
- kardos 10y agoI wonder if there is a use-case for this to be the storage device in a low-end VPS?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dman 10y agoSeems like a questionable product launch from Intel - http://semiaccurate.com/2017/03/27/intel-releases-consumer-m-2-xpoint-ssds/ http://semiaccurate.com/2017/03/27/intel-releases-consumer-m...
- ak217 10y agoIf I'm reading this right, this device is slower than a Samsung 960 Evo across the board (http://www.anandtech.com/show/10833/the-samsung-960-evo-1tb-review http://www.anandtech.com/show/10833/the-samsung-960-evo-1tb-...). It seems that when Intel started developing Optane, they didn't anticipate how much faster NVMe PCIe SSDs would become. Couple that with significant clock frequency headroom for DDR4, and this product really doesn't look competitive.
- ars 10y ago> If I'm reading this right, this device is slower than a Samsung 960 Evo across the board Be sure and check queue depth when comparing. Apparently their claim to fame is full speed even at low queue depth.
- olavgg 10y agoYou're reading the wrong numbers. Try benchmarking with PostgreSQL's pg_test_fsync or with fio with the following options: --direct=1 --sync=1 --rw=write --bs=4k Good random-write performance with 4k/8k blocks at QD1 is what matter for SSD's, not if they can write 2500MB/s to a volatile cache. Recommended read http://www.sebastien-han.fr/blog/2014/10/10/ceph-how-to-test-if-your-ssd-is-suitable-as-a-journal-device/ http://www.sebastien-han.fr/blog/2014/10/10/ceph-how-to-test...
- solotronics 10y agomy understanding was one goal of this would be replacing DRAM with 3D XPOINT so theoretically your computer would have 1 TB of this new memory in its RAM slots.
- valarauca1 10y agoYour understanding if a bit flawed, and largely based on marketting. Intel has hinted XPOINT will be usable in DRAM slots, but has yet to announce a product. Intel has stated XPOINT will replace DRAM buuut based on it's marketing material it won't. Having latencies go from 14nano-seconds to 9000nano-seconds isn't acceptable for a DRAM replacement.
- Moral_ 10y agoA lot of the 9000 latency you're speaking about is traversing the PCI bus. The Dimms should be lower latency.
- probablybanned 10y agoDoes anyone know whether this memory has limited cycle life like Flash?
- wallacoloo 10y agoIt does. Somebody else linked to the Semiaccurate article higher in the comments where they discuss this. It looks as though the per-bit endurance of the Optane drive is a bit less than modern flash, but they counteract this by having the drive's firmware reserve some blocks that it can remap over failing blocks.
- wallacoloo 10y agoAnd here's that Semiaccurate article: http://semiaccurate.com/2017/03/19/intel-officially-introduces-xpoint-dc-p4800x-ssd/ http://semiaccurate.com/2017/03/19/intel-officially-introduc...
- replete 10y agoSo they've made a big fuss about something that: - We can't just buy right now - Doesn't do the thing we were excited about (use optane as DRAM)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tetraodonpuffer 10y agoit seems this would be a great use case for DAWs and sample libraries in general, many many small files to be accessed with extremely low latency: this could make it possible to run large orchestral templates fully purged at all times, which would be a great use case when your template has hundreds of GB of samples but you only use a few of them at a time. This is already kind of doable with SSD, but if optane has an order of magnitude less access time it would of course make it even better for this use case.
- faragon 10y agoHow it compares to massive swapping to typical SSD?
- dsr_ 10y agoBadly. Suppose you have a 16GB laptop and the 16GB optane. When you close your laptop to take it to a mid-morning meeting, you've just done a whole drive write. Do it again at lunch, twice in the afternoon and again when you get home, you're at 5 of your 6 drive writes. Now imagine you open your laptop 8 or 12 times a day...
- hoschicz 10y agoClosing laptop usually mean suspend to memory, not disk.
- dsr_ 10y agoNot in the regime Intel is proposing, because optane stores data without power like a disk.
- Razengan 10y ago> When you close your laptop ... you've just done a whole drive write. Which OS does that? I know macOS doesn't, but it still manages to recover documents in the event of a crash thanks to NSDocument autosaving anyway.
- whalesalad 10y agoBefore the page could even finish rendering I had a pop-up to answer a survey. What is this called and why do websites continue to do it? Does this not massively destroy your conversion or retention rates? http://i.imgur.com/90VHYnU.png http://i.imgur.com/90VHYnU.png
- ChuckMcM 10y agoThe 'win' in theory for this stuff is that it is much faster than SSDs at low queue depths and it is significantly more write tolerant. An interesting interesting system design might be a 2GB main memory with a 32GB swap partition on this device. That would be interesting because in idle mode it uses less power than an equivalent amount of DDR memory. So you could potentially build a laptop with good performance on larger memory tasks but longer standby battery life. It would also be interesting paired with an equivalent amount of DRAM where it mirrors main memory so you could have 'instant' off and 'instant' on type booting and shutdown. At larger pool sizes this becomes interesting as a non-volatile index for NoSQL and other databases. Intel's claim has been in the past that its density can exceed SSDs by a healthy margin.Not seeing that in these products but time will tell. I've been watching them struggle to productize this tech for about 2 years now[1]. Now to see if they can get it to live up to the hype. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/intel-and-micron-unveil-3d-xpoint-a-brand-new-memory-technology/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/intel-and-micron-unv...
- mtgx 10y ago> Intel's claim has been in the past that its density can exceed SSDs by a healthy margin Seems doubtful they would reach that goal until SSDs hit some kind of hard plateau (kind of like HDDs did). Toshiba plans to make a 100TB SSD over the next couple of years, and I believe Samsung has already announced a 16TB SSD. I doubt 3D Xpoint can catch-up with those in the given time frame.
- wtallis 10y agoNAND flash memory already hit the wall for horizontal shrinks, and some products plowed past that limit and into the regime where day to day use was invoking the second level error correction methods to compensate for data degradation. 3D NAND turned the clock back on horizontal scaling and cell sizes by several years, and now the only scaling opportunity is to increase layer count. That's not going so well. Samsung started with 24 layers but didn't ship retail products until they hit 32 layers. Their 48 layers was about a year late and caused several products to be scrapped entirely. Toshiba's on their third generation 3D NAND and it's only just starting to show up in the market. SK Hynix is doing worse than Toshiba. Intel and Micron started off reasonably well with their 32-layer and are working on ramping up 64-layer. By the end of this year, all four manufacturers should be shipping 64-layer (72 for SK Hynix) 3D NAND in volume, or else it's time to admit that 3D NAND just doesn't scale up as well as we hoped it would. There's some reason to believe 3D XPoint memory might be able to avoid the worst vertical scaling problems that are holding back 3D NAND flash. Each pair of 3D XPoint layers can be pretty much isolated from the rest of the layers except at the edges, whereas 3D NAND is building columns of bits that run through all 64+ layers and have aspect ratios that are quite high.
- tkyjonathan 10y agoWith all the exciting background music, I couldn't help thinking "isn't this solving a problem from 5-6 years ago?"
- amluto 10y agoI think you can (pending driver support?) plug one of these in and memory map it. On Linux, this means you'd see it as a "DAX" filesystem, and if you mmap(2) a file, you get a bona fide direct mapping of the hardware into your address space. This is very cool and would enable some interesting database-ish use cases. I'll believe it when I see the spec and the code.
- wmf 10y agoThis is a regular SSD, not a DIMM. It's not memory.
- amluto 10y agoThat doesn't mean it can't expose a big physical address window (BAR) to the host. There's some documented precedent: the "controller memory block". As currently specced, though, the CMB is volatile.
- wtallis 10y agoNo DAX yet. Both this consumer Optane Memory product and the enterprise Optane SSD announced last week are standard NVMe devices. For the enterprise market, Intel is providing mmap capability with a hypervisor-based software solution. 3D XPoint DIMMs are on the roadmap for next year.
- amluto 10y agoThat's lame. Some competitors are working on DAX-capable PCIe devices. Intel seems to be surprisingly behind here. How would a hypervisor sulution work? Trap and emulate all accesses?
- derefr 10y agoI'd be interested in knowing what the performance of the caching is compared to e.g. using dm-cache with an SSD backing a HDD in Linux.
- wtallis 10y agoIf you've got suggestions for how to meaningfully and realistically compare caching of a Windows boot volume against a Linux cache solution, please share. My usual suite of tests won't work well for this, and I'm open to suggestions for what to include in my new test suite.
- runeks 10y agoOn the "Shop" page, there's a list of motherboards [1]. Is it not possible to buy as a standalone drive? [1] http://www.intel.com/buy/us/en/audience/optane-memory http://www.intel.com/buy/us/en/audience/optane-memory
- patrickg_zill 10y ago2GBytes/second as RAM is as good as DDR1 memory. So take a CPU with more memory channels on it, run at least 1 Optane per channel, run hundreds of VMs on it, everything runs from this slower RAM, but it is in memory and you only touch the SSDs for updating the disk. Once the cache is warmed up performance should be just fine.
- daemonk 10y agoSo this is really just a smart caching system for slower hard drives?
- ksec 10y agoI think this is an Easy win for DIMM in servers where you could fit a much larger capacity then DRAM. And this is only a first gen product. But for consumers? I am not sure if they can feel the difference between a decent SSD drive and Optane Memory. It fits the role of Page File. So you could always have 2x - 3x the Optane Memory as Page Cache. System with this would means less Memory required, and saves battery. While the controller for SSD could be less complicated and focus primarily on Seq/Read Write. SSD could also be DRAM-less, save cost and battery. But even then, $44 for 16GB is just hard to convince most consumers.
- lostmsu 10y agoHow much benefit does it give over using any other NVMe SSD (which would probably be much cheaper) and some caching software like Diskache?