4 ms·

I think it would be fun to futz around with persistent memory but AFAIK it would mean working specifically with Intel tech. Will there be a point in time when I

I think it would be fun to futz around with persistent memory but AFAIK it would mean working specifically with Intel tech. Will there be a point in time when I will be able to program against something that's not Optane as well with the same interface?

wmf 6y ago
Probably not. 3D XPoint can't be used in non-Intel DIMMs due to licensing. Samsung and Micron gave up on PCM. MRAM isn't dense enough. IBM has done a lot of research on non-DRAM DIMMs but none of it can come to market without suitable media.
- loeg 6y ago
  There are NVDIMMs that are just DRAM with a battery/supercap and some NAND to store on powerloss that implement the same spec.
pbalcer 6y ago
Disclaimer: I work at Intel on Persistent Memory If you are asking just about the OS interfaces - you can already emulate persistent memory with DRAM [1], which allows you to play around with the programming model. There are also NVDIMM-N devices available on the market today that expose the same interface. IBM also has a product called Virtual Persistent Memory [2]. I expect that once CXL [3] becomes adopted, there will be more diversity in terms of Persistent Memory hardware vendors. [1] - https://docs.pmem.io/persistent-memory/getting-started-guide/creating-development-environments https://docs.pmem.io/persistent-memory/getting-started-guide... [2] - https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/09ERZEVQ https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/09ERZEVQ [3] - https://pirl.nvsl.io/PIRL2019-content/PIRL-2019-Stephen-Bates.pdf https://pirl.nvsl.io/PIRL2019-content/PIRL-2019-Stephen-Bate...
- danharaj 6y ago
  Thank you! My question was deliberately vague but you hit all the points I cared about and gave me keywords to read further about.
- trentnelson 6y ago
  Can you share anything public about when the consumer-level gear is going to hit the market?
  - pbalcer 6y ago
    I don't believe anything was announced publicly - sorry.
moondev 6y ago
VMware ESXi has a cool feature that allows you to create "fake" pmem drives from a percentage of your host memory. It's pretty fun to experiment with!

wmf 6y ago

Probably not. 3D XPoint can't be used in non-Intel DIMMs due to licensing. Samsung and Micron gave up on PCM. MRAM isn't dense enough. IBM has done a lot of research on non-DRAM DIMMs but none of it can come to market without suitable media.

loeg 6y ago
There are NVDIMMs that are just DRAM with a battery/supercap and some NAND to store on powerloss that implement the same spec.

pbalcer 6y ago

Disclaimer: I work at Intel on Persistent Memory If you are asking just about the OS interfaces - you can already emulate persistent memory with DRAM [1], which allows you to play around with the programming model. There are also NVDIMM-N devices available on the market today that expose the same interface. IBM also has a product called Virtual Persistent Memory [2]. I expect that once CXL [3] becomes adopted, there will be more diversity in terms of Persistent Memory hardware vendors. [1] - https://docs.pmem.io/persistent-memory/getting-started-guide/creating-development-environments https://docs.pmem.io/persistent-memory/getting-started-guide... [2] - https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/09ERZEVQ https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/09ERZEVQ [3] - https://pirl.nvsl.io/PIRL2019-content/PIRL-2019-Stephen-Bates.pdf https://pirl.nvsl.io/PIRL2019-content/PIRL-2019-Stephen-Bate...

danharaj 6y ago
Thank you! My question was deliberately vague but you hit all the points I cared about and gave me keywords to read further about.
trentnelson 6y ago
Can you share anything public about when the consumer-level gear is going to hit the market?
- pbalcer 6y ago
  I don't believe anything was announced publicly - sorry.

moondev 6y ago

VMware ESXi has a cool feature that allows you to create "fake" pmem drives from a percentage of your host memory. It's pretty fun to experiment with!