NVME also wasn't as widespread as it is now, 3 years ago, when Optane was launching. An enterprise grade NVME SSD closed that gap significantly with Optane dri

NVME also wasn't as widespread as it is now, 3 years ago, when Optane was launching. An enterprise grade NVME SSD closed that gap significantly with Optane drives, compared to regular SATA III SSDs. Also, SSD flash controllers are now mature enough to the point where you can just throw a ton of low-grade flash at it, and have very respectable performance.