Using Optane memory on a supported Laptop

[rc worx]

Hi,

I was considering to buy a Lenovo L470. It comes with 4GB RAM and a 1TB Hard disk. Since it already supports Optane, would it possible to plonk a 16GB card and speed up the machine?

Processor: Intel Core i5-7200U Processor ( 2.50GHz 2133MHz 3MB )
Memory: 4.0GB PC4-17000 DDR4 SODIMM 2133MHz
Hard Drive: 1TB 5400 rpm

Edit: It comes with DOS and i plan to install Linux on it and maybe use it as a swap partition.

Cheers!

 

[Billy Tallis]

If you're planning to use Linux, then you can just make the Optane Memory module your swap device, or you could setup bcache to have the Optane module act as a cache for the hard drive. Either way, don't turn on any BIOS settings related to Optane, because those are only for Intel's caching software for Windows.

As a Linux user, you also have the option of using an Optane Memory module for caching or swap on any machine with a M.2 PCIe slot, even if it's not a Kaby Lake or newer system advertising Optane Memory support. As far as Linux is concerned, the Optane Memory module is just a standard NVMe device.

 

[rc worx]

@Billy Tallis Thank you very much for your response. Cheers.