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This article reeks of being "sponsored" by Intel, but there is no mention of it anywhere in the article. So my first question is - what, if any role did Intel p

by tw04 9y ago

This article reeks of being "sponsored" by Intel, but there is no mention of it anywhere in the article. So my first question is - what, if any role did Intel play in the creation of this article? Second - I find it ironic after all the marketing buzz that Intel has finally admitted that the endurance of Optane is embarrassing compared to NAND devices. This was their original claim: >When Intel announced 3D XPoint, the company said that it would be 1,000 times faster than NAND flash, 10 times denser than (volatile) DRAM, and with 1,000 times the endurance of NAND Those claims are so far off from reality that I'm surprised their shareholders haven't sued them over the claims.

jlgaddis 9y ago
Perhaps you missed this part? > The genesis of this project was that a user requested we setup a custom demo in our DemoEval lab to compare drives using this specific workload. The individual wanted to compare a few of their existing NAND solutions to Optane.
tpetry 9y ago
Why should it be an advertisment bought by intel? Optane disks are technically the best at the moment for ZFS SLOG but nobody had tested it in reality yet, so they just did it very good.
wmf 9y ago
ServeTheHome is one of the most honest hardware review sites, especially in the very small field of server/enterprise hardware. AFAIK ServeTheHome is basically advertising for DemoEval which is an independent lab full of servers that you can rent access to. So there's a commercial interest behind it, but it's not Intel. Here's their policy if you want to believe it: https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-policies/ https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-polic... Looking at Optane specifically, it is just that good. It is 2x-10x better than NAND (at ~2x the price) in certain aspects like mixed read/write or fsync. This is very far from Intel's 1000x claims, but Optane is still worth buying in some cases. (Also, feel free to call me a paid shill if you want to get deeper in the mud.)
- tw04 9y ago
  2x-10x better when they claimed 1000x isn't "just that good". ESPECIALLY not when the write endurance is so abysmal. The fact they don't come out and say, in the review, the hardware was furnished by Intel, and instead you have to actively search out the link you just provided, in and of itself is troubling. It's common courtesy and pretty much industry standard practice to list conflicts of interest at the start or end of an article like the one posted...
  - wmf 9y ago
    I think you're tricking yourself into a wrong conclusion. What was promised doesn't matter (to a customer); all that matters is the price and performance.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      Ignoring the difference between 3D XPoint memory and Optane-branded products based on that memory is a good way to reach bad conclusions. But even accounting for that, Intel's definitely not hitting their goals for endurance yet, and the density goal is the only one they clearly have come close to. We won't be able to judge performance until there are 3D XPoint NVDIMMs that get the PCIe bus out of the way.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - olavgg 9y ago
    Write endurance for Optane 900p 280GB 5.11 PB Write endurance Intel S3700 200GB 10 drive writes per day for 5 years or 3.65PB for 5 years. Write endurance Intel S3500 240GB 140 TB So I cannot understand why you think the write endurance is lacking.
  - Patrick-STH 9y ago
    Hi tw04 - just as a heads up, none of the SSDs were furnished by Intel. We have a budget and bought all of the drives we used on this test. Some we had to buy second hand, some were scavenged from servers we have had to decommission. Intel does provide us with hardware, as does AMD, Intel, Toshiba, Samsung, WDC, Cavium and etc. In fact, we have a full list of all relationships here: https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-policies/ https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-polic... Unlike virtually every other major review site (and a large number of bloggers), as of today we still do not have direct ad sales to any of these companies. We also buy an absolute ton of gear for the DemoEval service we run which is why we have access to many different bits. For example, we have purchased a dozen Optane 900p's already since Intel would not furnish us with a U.2 drive. Intel does not want to have the 900p eat into the P4800X which is a higher margin product. As a result, this is the kind of article (Optane 900p in servers) that Intel specifically would not want us to do. Since we buy hardware, we can.
dis-sys 9y ago
No matter what claims were made in the past, it is crystal clear that Optane 900P is a killer device for ZIL style access pattern. This has been verified by numerous sources, independent or sponsored. As explained in the article, the expected life span of 900p is also amazing making it suitable for enterprise use, that is another huge bonus. What Intel offered here is a $300 device doubling your ZFS throughput performance and making the latency 10x smaller. As of writing, there is no competitor offering anything similar in that space. Optane is still new, there are of course rooms for further improvements, I'd look at that in a very positive way - more exciting products are coming.

by tw04 9y ago

jlgaddis 9y ago

Perhaps you missed this part? > The genesis of this project was that a user requested we setup a custom demo in our DemoEval lab to compare drives using this specific workload. The individual wanted to compare a few of their existing NAND solutions to Optane.

tpetry 9y ago

Why should it be an advertisment bought by intel? Optane disks are technically the best at the moment for ZFS SLOG but nobody had tested it in reality yet, so they just did it very good.

wmf 9y ago

ServeTheHome is one of the most honest hardware review sites, especially in the very small field of server/enterprise hardware. AFAIK ServeTheHome is basically advertising for DemoEval which is an independent lab full of servers that you can rent access to. So there's a commercial interest behind it, but it's not Intel. Here's their policy if you want to believe it: https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-policies/ https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-polic... Looking at Optane specifically, it is just that good. It is 2x-10x better than NAND (at ~2x the price) in certain aspects like mixed read/write or fsync. This is very far from Intel's 1000x claims, but Optane is still worth buying in some cases. (Also, feel free to call me a paid shill if you want to get deeper in the mud.)

tw04 9y ago
2x-10x better when they claimed 1000x isn't "just that good". ESPECIALLY not when the write endurance is so abysmal. The fact they don't come out and say, in the review, the hardware was furnished by Intel, and instead you have to actively search out the link you just provided, in and of itself is troubling. It's common courtesy and pretty much industry standard practice to list conflicts of interest at the start or end of an article like the one posted...
- wmf 9y ago
  I think you're tricking yourself into a wrong conclusion. What was promised doesn't matter (to a customer); all that matters is the price and performance.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    Ignoring the difference between 3D XPoint memory and Optane-branded products based on that memory is a good way to reach bad conclusions. But even accounting for that, Intel's definitely not hitting their goals for endurance yet, and the density goal is the only one they clearly have come close to. We won't be able to judge performance until there are 3D XPoint NVDIMMs that get the PCIe bus out of the way.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- olavgg 9y ago
  Write endurance for Optane 900p 280GB 5.11 PB Write endurance Intel S3700 200GB 10 drive writes per day for 5 years or 3.65PB for 5 years. Write endurance Intel S3500 240GB 140 TB So I cannot understand why you think the write endurance is lacking.
- Patrick-STH 9y ago
  Hi tw04 - just as a heads up, none of the SSDs were furnished by Intel. We have a budget and bought all of the drives we used on this test. Some we had to buy second hand, some were scavenged from servers we have had to decommission. Intel does provide us with hardware, as does AMD, Intel, Toshiba, Samsung, WDC, Cavium and etc. In fact, we have a full list of all relationships here: https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-policies/ https://www.servethehome.com/about/editorial-copyright-polic... Unlike virtually every other major review site (and a large number of bloggers), as of today we still do not have direct ad sales to any of these companies. We also buy an absolute ton of gear for the DemoEval service we run which is why we have access to many different bits. For example, we have purchased a dozen Optane 900p's already since Intel would not furnish us with a U.2 drive. Intel does not want to have the 900p eat into the P4800X which is a higher margin product. As a result, this is the kind of article (Optane 900p in servers) that Intel specifically would not want us to do. Since we buy hardware, we can.

dis-sys 9y ago

No matter what claims were made in the past, it is crystal clear that Optane 900P is a killer device for ZIL style access pattern. This has been verified by numerous sources, independent or sponsored. As explained in the article, the expected life span of 900p is also amazing making it suitable for enterprise use, that is another huge bonus. What Intel offered here is a $300 device doubling your ZFS throughput performance and making the latency 10x smaller. As of writing, there is no competitor offering anything similar in that space. Optane is still new, there are of course rooms for further improvements, I'd look at that in a very positive way - more exciting products are coming.