Intel Optane 16-32gb Cashe m.2 drive on amd and intel

[purecain]

whats everyones opinion on this. it looks like you can speed up your ssd's dramatically. so for me that means I don't need a large nvme m.2 drive like I was going to buy for my new build.
instead it can be 500gb for the os. I'm thinking this will work but its early days and ive only read 2 or 3 short reviews. I need info...

any pros around for some info?????

 

[EarthDog]

Ehh.. dont think you can use this on AMD...its all intel z270 right now.

I think its a gimmick... get an NVME drive.

Review/Preview is a google away: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11210/the-intel-optane-memory-ssd-review-32gb-of-kaby-lake-caching

 

[natr0n]

It's kinda proprietary to specific intel systems.

Another "the next big thing" gimmick

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Iinustechtips done a video to see if they could accelerate an SSD. their tests proved it to be rather pointless and the only way you'd see a big difference in performance was if you had a bunch of mechanical hard drives along with intel optane instead of SSDs

 

[alucasa]

Intel missed the days where they could sell 16gb/32gb SSD for huge sums, so they came up with Optane.

 

[purecain]

that's the oppinions I was looking for. nvme m.2 it is...

I just finished watching the asus intel presentation.quote 'it uses the nvme protocols to access the speeds'.
its a shame it isn't a product with compatibility solely resting on the appropriate nvme m.2 cabable slot being available. I have a few ssd's which would of had some benefit.

 

[newtekie1]

so for me that means I don't need a large nvme m.2 drive like I was going to buy for my new build.
instead it can be 500gb for the os.

You don't need a large NVMe drive anyway. You won't notice the difference between a M.2 NVMe drive and a SATA SSD. You can measure the difference, but in real world use you won't notice the difference.

 

[EarthDog]

My wife can notice.

 

[cdawall]

My wife can notice.

My 6 year old son can notice the time difference between my two HTPC's. Both specs match minus one has an M.2 SATA and the other is an NVMe. (6700T, 16GB3200CL16, Z170)

 

[FreedomEclipse]

 

[RejZoR]

Why would you accelerate an SSD using essentially what's an evolved SSD. It makes no sense at all. HDD and SSD combos make sense because SSD is so radically faster, but HDD's are still cheapest per GB. In case of Optane, get a bloody big M.2 NVMe SSD and that's it. That's like caching a cache. It's stupid and makes no sense.

As for using Optane on AMD, I assume Optane drive is recognized as normal SSD drive to the OS. Basically you need to install Optane drive and simply setup cache on it using software like PrimoCache. Again, it only makes sense to use it to boost HDD's. There is no point in caching SSD's. I don't know why Linus did it, but I think he was just goofing around. Then again you can do the same with any M.2 SSD drive. probably for cheaper with hardly any difference.

Technically speaking, Optane or normal fast M.2 NVMe SSD, only really huge difference is number of writes where Optane will last a lot longer. The loads are never intense enough on consumer systems for lower latency to really make a difference in favor of Optane...

Source: Personal experience with HDD's, SSD's and hybrid HDD/SSD systems.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Why would you accelerate an SSD using essentially what's an evolved SSD. It makes no sense at all. HDD and SSD combos make sense because SSD is so radically faster, but HDD's are still cheapest per GB. In case of Optane, get a bloody big M.2 NVMe SSD and that's it. That's like caching a cache. It's stupid and makes no sense.

As for using Optane on AMD, I assume Optane drive is recognized as normal SSD drive to the OS. Basically you need to install Optane drive and simply setup cache on it using software like PrimoCache. Again, it only makes sense to use it to boost HDD's. There is no point in caching SSD's. I don't know why Linus did it, but I think he was just goofing around. Then again you can do the same with any M.2 SSD drive. probably for cheaper with hardly any difference.

Technically speaking, Optane or normal fast M.2 NVMe SSD, only really huge difference is number of writes where Optane will last a lot longer. The loads are never intense enough on consumer systems for lower latency to really make a difference in favor of Optane...

Source: Personal experience with HDD's, SSD's and hybrid HDD/SSD systems.

He did it because he wanted to show that it was a waste of money

 

[RejZoR]

It's not a waste of money if you know how to use it (to accelerate HDD). And since NO ONE seems to know how to properly use it, the answer is kinda self explanatory...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

It's not a waste of money if you know how to use it (to accelerate HDD). And since NO ONE seems to know how to properly use it, the answer is kinda self explanatory...

Sorry. I though the point you were arguing was for using it to accelerate an SSD

 

[RejZoR]

That and also the fact people literally have no clue what these accelerators are meant for. They just hear cool things and have ZERO idea how to use them and what you benefit from them. I kid you not, every single time these things come up anywhere...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

That and also the fact people literally have no clue what these accelerators are meant for. They just hear cool things and have ZERO idea how to use them and what you benefit from them. I kid you not, every single time these things come up anywhere...

I'll just have to take your word for it then

 

[EarthDog]

Why would you accelerate an SSD using essentially what's an evolved SSD. It makes no sense at all. HDD and SSD combos make sense because SSD is so radically faster, but HDD's are still cheapest per GB. In case of Optane, get a bloody big M.2 NVMe SSD and that's it. That's like caching a cache. It's stupid and makes no sense.

As for using Optane on AMD, I assume Optane drive is recognized as normal SSD drive to the OS. Basically you need to install Optane drive and simply setup cache on it using software like PrimoCache. Again, it only makes sense to use it to boost HDD's. There is no point in caching SSD's. I don't know why Linus did it, but I think he was just goofing around. Then again you can do the same with any M.2 SSD drive. probably for cheaper with hardly any difference.

Technically speaking, Optane or normal fast M.2 NVMe SSD, only really huge difference is number of writes where Optane will last a lot longer. The loads are never intense enough on consumer systems for lower latency to really make a difference in favor of Optane...

Source: Personal experience with HDD's, SSD's and hybrid HDD/SSD systems.

it wont work on amd.

Caching a HDD is valid, but... played out. Weve seen that years ago. SSDs are so cheap, i dont understand why people would bother with this technology at this time. Theres a reason why we didnt see many hybrids in the market with the cost of ssd dropping over time.

Source: experience with ssd, nvme ssd, hdd, and hybrid drives.

 

[RejZoR]

SSD's are so cheap... 2TB was 850€. I wouldn't call that "cheap". And neither is 600€ as much as they ask for the cheapest 2TB Crucial. If you mean cheap for boot drives, then you also have no clue about anything. At all.

How is caching a HDD "played out", but using SSD for boot drive and using retarded slow HDD on its own still "the thing"? You people make no sense at all.

 

[EarthDog]

For warm/cold storage, clearly a HDD is the way to go. Most people dont have the need for 2TB worth of active space like that. A 512GB is enough for your OS and several games.

It will never win the $/GB war, but $225 for a 512GB drive (BTW thats PCIe NVMe around that price range - a regular SSD is a lot cheaper...) drive is plenty reasonable over a $1000+ system...

What is with this place and its propensity to immediately insult other users when they don't agree?

 

[RejZoR]

Yeah, but with 128GB SSD and 2TB HDD, anyone can have basically the same performance as I do with pure 2TB SSD. That's the point. But no matter how much I explain and bitch about it, people still don't get it. Why exactly, well, that's totally beyond my comprehension.

 

[newtekie1]

Yeah, but with 128GB SSD and 2TB HDD, anyone can have basically the same performance as I do with pure 2TB SSD. That's the point. But no matter how much I explain and bitch about it, people still don't get it. Why exactly, well, that's totally beyond my comprehension.

That simply isn't the case. Even with a 128GB SSD Cache, a 2TB HDD just doesn't perform like a 2TB SSD. The 128GB cache improves things sometimes, but others are still just as slow as just using the HDD. The hybrid setup is a good middle ground, especially for a games HDD as long as you only play a few games at a time and aren't someone that bounced between a lot of games. It also isn't something I'd use on my OS drive, the performance improvement just isn't enough in that usage case compared to just using a ~250GB SSD as my OS/Program drive.

 

[notb]

It's not a waste of money if you know how to use it (to accelerate HDD). And since NO ONE seems to know how to properly use it, the answer is kinda self explanatory...

I have similar observations. People still complain that it's just 32 GB, which clearly shows that the idea of caching is widely unknown in the "enthusiast community".
Yet no one has noticed that CPU cache memory is just ~10^-3 of RAM. Imagine how pointless it must be compared to a disk cache of 32 GB, when most disks are merely 10^2 larger.

Long time ago I had an app that collected file usage statistics. I think everyone should try something like that. It could be very educating...

That simply isn't the case. Even with a 128GB SSD Cache, a 2TB HDD just doesn't perform like a 2TB SSD. The 128GB cache improves things sometimes, but others are still just as slow as just using the HDD.

Thing is: how much of those 2TB do you actually use? And how much of that is actually limited by HDD speed?

Media files (music, video) can be comfortably used at HDD speeds and a well designed cache WILL NOT include them (even if you listen to the same mp3 all the time).

I think you underestimate what is provided here.
The cache only includes things that are used often. In case of games that could be the engine and some essential graphics. So you still get very fast startup and level loading.
But everything else stays on the HDD and is read as you play.
You get all the benefits of fast SSD, but it only has to contain a relatively small part of a game. You installation is in fact on 2 drives. It's not easy to do that manually.

If you play large-world games like Fallout 4 (30 GB) or Mass Effect: Andromeda (55GB), you could fill a 256GB SSD with just 6-8 titles.
But a 32GB cache can contain "essential" files for twice as much games and they'll still feel like being installed on an SSD.

It's much the same with Windows. The whole installation is usually well over 20GB. For booting you need maybe 2-3GB - that can be stored on the cache.
The rest can be kept on HDD with no performance difference.
You'll most likely never use half of those 20GB anyway.

 

[RejZoR]

You have to bounce between one hell of a number of games to fill 128GB cache. Remember, this doesn't cache WHOLE game, it'll just cache files that game accesses most frequently. In fact PrimoCache is capable of caching only blocks of files, meaning it doesn't have to cache ENTIRE texture resource file if it's I don't know, 40GB in size. It can only cache 10GB of it because game keeps on accessing those, but not the rest.

@notb
Exactly. I agree that 8GB SSD cache on SSHD drives is not enough, because I know it's not enough, but 32GB that I initially had and later 128GB, that was really awesome and I'd still be using it if I haven't switched to full massive SSD because I also needed absolute silence and hybrid just can't deliver it since there is still a mechanical drive. But performance wise, for stuff that got cached, I frankly can't tell the difference between that and my current Samsung 850 Pro. It was really fast across almost everything, boot time of OS, loading of browser and apps, loading of games, it was all so much faster.

 

[notb]

You have to bounce between one hell of a number of games to fill 128GB cache. Remember, this doesn't cache WHOLE game, it'll just cache files that game accesses most frequently. In fact PrimoCache is capable of caching only blocks of files, meaning it doesn't have to cache ENTIRE texture resource file if it's I don't know, 40GB in size. It can only cache 10GB of it because game keeps on accessing those, but not the rest.

We should note that the way game developers handle disks is just wasteful lately. Back in a day, when your HDD was 10 or even 100 times bigger than a CD, they were actually optimizing the space that games needed. And when you installed it, you often had a choice of min/recommended/max installation. And of course it was very unlikely that a game or other software needed more than 5-6 CDs.
Then we went to DVDs (and DLC), 1TB HDDs and GPUs with 2GB+ memory. And game developers went bananas.
It's just idiotic that Fallout 4 needs 30GB even when someone plays at 1600x900 and medium quality, when it basically looks like a slightly revamped Skyrim (which needed 6GB or something).

The general argument was that now everyone has a 1TB disk so "whatever". But files keep growing (games, photos) and disks don't. Not only popular consumer HDDs stoped around 1-2TB, but now more and more made a step backwards (in size) to SSDs. Once again we're at a point when disks are easy to fill and you have to choose what's really needed...

I preciselly remember the CD->DVD switch. Before that so many games were just fine on 1 CD, but afterwards suddenly almost nothing I played took less than 2-3GB - even though games really didn't change instantly.

 

[alucasa]

We should note that the way game developers handle disks is just wasteful lately.

Not just game developers. Software developers are guilty of this as well, especially Adobe. Look at the size of their software. Adobe acrobat reader is 110mb the last time I checked.