Optane memory combined with an SSD?

[boed]

Any point in using optane if you already have an SSD? Any testing articles out there?

 

[Elixer]

Nothing that will make a much of a difference in the real world.
At this point, I classify optane as a gimmick, too expensive for what you get, and the $$$ would be better spent on other things, like a faster/bigger SSD/M.2.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Nothing that will make a much of a difference in the real world.
At this point, I classify optane as a gimmick, too expensive for what you get, and the $$$ would be better spent on other things, like a faster/bigger SSD/M.2.

This^^

Then there is the added complexity of the caching setup (lower reliability), and higher capacity SSDs perform better due to more physical NAND chips.

 

[deustroop]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3191...-want-intels-futuristic-cache-in-your-pc.html

The first results speak for themselves. HDDs love optane cache.

One of Intel’s arguments for Optane is off-the-hook latency when reading small files with very low queue depths. Optane as a cache for the hard drive also destroys both SSDs, including the mighty Samsung 960 Pro.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The first results speak for themselves. HDDs love optane cache.

This is literally true. In some benchmarks, Optane Memory works best paired with HDD, its worse paired with SSD and SSHD. Probably that's why Intel optimized for?

SSDs with Optane won't bring noticeable benefits. Diminishing returns. It's really about using with HDD. I have i3 7100, 16GB Optane Memory, 2TB Seagate 7200RPM.

The hard drive spins way less than it used to.

Special scenario that saw a big benefit: There was a flash game I played in firefox that used 90% CPU. It loaded slow, and the game experience was laggy. Multi-tasking became hard. It would lag browsing. I remembered on my SSD laptop Firefox nor Chrome had such issues. Chrome is faster on my i3 7100 system, but it has compatibility issues.

With Optane Memory the CPU usage went down to 30-40% or so and its very playable. So that 90% CPU utilization consisted of idle threads. Multi-tasking is possible.

 

[Ratman6161]

I can see a case for it. It really does seem to work as far as speeding up a spinning disk. But seems like for a system disk you are better off with an SSD. Where I could see it is for someone who needed a large volume of storage. Say you need 2 or 4 or more TB?. AN SSD in those sizes could be prohibitively expensive. A 4 TB disk with a $72 optane drive seems like it could be a viable alternative.

Wonder if its possible to cache a RAID array on an pot and drive?

 

[arandomguy]

What an ideal current use case would be users with a SSD but also using HDDs for additional storage. A common setup might be a smaller SSD paired with a larger HDD or more. So you can get acceleration of data that you may access frequently for short periods on and off without having to manually manage it between the HDD and SSD.

An example would be having a larger HDD as a games drive so you can keep more without having to dl/install. You sometimes spontaneously feel like playing a game for the next short while, now you won't need to weigh manually moving it to the SSD.

What would be great is if it could be configured as a generic cache for any, including multiple, drives in the system.

 

[oslama]

I have 512gb ssd system drive and 2tb hdd storage drive on mb with 7700k and 16gb ram.

Would i notice any gains if i install 16gb optane to use as cache buffer b/w ram and ssd? If so, how do i configure it.

 

[cbn]

Any point in using optane if you already have an SSD? Any testing articles out there?

Here is a review I found using the 32GB Optane Memory with both SATA SSD and SATA HDD:

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Intel-Optane-Memory-32GB-Review-Faster-Lightning

 

[cbn]

Then there is the added complexity of the caching setup (lower reliability), and higher capacity SSDs perform better due to more physical NAND chips.

How would the reliability be lower?

 

[XavierMace]

How would the reliability be lower?

Because you now have two physical devices (Optane + HDD) instead of just one.

 

[cbn]

How would the reliability be lower?

Because you now have two physical devices (Optane + HDD) instead of just one.

If the hard drive fails, the optane being cache should have data on it right? (This is better than just having HDD (or SSD) alone)

 

[aigomorla]

If the hard drive fails, the optane being cache should have data on it right? (This is better than just having HDD (or SSD) alone)

no thats not how writeback cache works... lol...

if anything u have worse, because if the optane drive is broken, you could have the writeback write bad sectors on the HDD, meaning now u have 2 places which can go terribly wrong with data.