Intel optane 800p review: The Intel Optane SSD 800p (58GB & 118GB) Review: Almost The Right Size

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IntroductionAnandTech Storage Bench — The DestroyerAnandTech Storage Bench — HeavyAnandTech Storage Bench — LightRandom PerformanceSequential PerformanceMixed Read/Write PerformancePower ManagementConclusion

Intel’s first Optane products hit the market almost a year ago, putting the much-awaited 3D XPoint memory in the hands of consumers. Today, Intel broadens that family with the Optane SSD 800p, pushing the Optane brand closer to the mainstream.

The new Optane SSD 800p is an M.2 NVMe SSD using Intel’s 3D XPoint memory instead of flash memory. The 800p is based on the same hardware platform as last year’s Optane Memory M.2 drive, which was intended primarily for caching purposes (but could also be used as a boot drive with a sufficiently small operating system). That means the 800p uses a PCIe 3 x2 link and Intel’s first-generation 3D XPoint memory—but more of it, with usable capacities of 58GB and 118GB compared to just 16GB and 32GB from last year’s Optane Memory. The PCB layout has been tweaked and the sticker on the drive no longer has a foil layer to act as a heatspreader, but the most significant design changes are to the drive firmware, which now supports power management including a low power idle state.

The low capacities of the Optane Memory product forced Intel to position it as a drive specifically for caching in front of a much larger hard drive, but the Optane SSD 800p has enough space to serve as primary storage. While 64GB-class drives have disappeared from current flash-based SSD product lines, there are still plenty of 128GB-class drives around. These drive capacities certainly aren’t roomy, but they are sufficient to install an operating system and several applications. For users that don’t install huge AAA video games or deal with large collections of videos and photos, the 118GB 800p might not even feel too confining.

For flash-based SSDs, tiny capacities should often be avoided because they have much worse performance than larger models. The relatively small 128Gbit (16GB) capacity of a single 3D XPoint die means the Optane SSD avoids the limited parallelism that small flash-based drives suffer from, and the performance of a single 3D XPoint die is high enough that not much parallelism is needed to begin with.

Intel Optane SSD Specifications
Model	Optane SSD 800p		Optane Memory
Capacity	118 GB	58 GB	32 GB	16 GB
Form Factor	M. 2 2280 B+M key		M.2 2280 B+M key
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x2		PCIe 3.0 x2
Protocol	NVMe 1.1		NVMe 1.1
Controller	Intel		Intel
Memory	128Gb 20nm Intel 3D XPoint		128Gb 20nm Intel 3D XPoint
Sequential Read	1450 MB/s		1350 MB/s	900 MB/s
Sequential Write	640 MB/s		290 MB/s	145 MB/s
Random Read	250k IOPS		240k IOPS	190k IOPS
Random Write	140k IOPS		65k IOPS	35k IOPS
Read Latency	6. 75 µs		7 µs	8 µs
Write Latency	18µs		18µs	30 µs
Active Power	3.75 W		3.5 W	3.5 W
Idle Power	8 mW	8 mW	1 W	1 W
Endurance	365 TB	365 TB	182.5 TB	182.5 TB
Warranty	5 years		5 years
Launch Date	March 2018		April 2017
Launch MSRP	$199	$129	$77	$44

Buy Intel Optane SSD 800p 58GB on Newegg

The higher capacities that the Optane SSD 800p offers over the Optane Memory also allow for much higher write performance, which was the biggest weakness of Optane Memory. Still, this only brings the 800p up to performance levels slightly faster than SATA, with sequential write performance rated at 640 MB/s and 4kB random write at 140k IOPS. Read speeds are slightly faster than the 32GB Optane Memory and also look poor compared to flash-based SSDs, but Intel is specifying this performance at a queue depth of four, which is far lower than what most flash-based SSDs need to hit their peak throughput.

The addition of a low-power sleep state brings the idle power rating of the 800p down to just 8mW, compared to the 1W rating on the smaller Optane Memory modules. The endurance rating for both capacities is 200 GB/day for the five-year warranty period. Given the small capacity of the drives, this works out to 1.7 or 3.4 drive writes per day, which is considerably higher than normal for consumer SSDs.

The capacities of 58GB and 118GB look odd compared to the more usual amounts like 120GB or 128GB commonly seen for flash-based SSDs. The reason the 800p has slightly reduced capacity is that a 3D XPoint die’s actual capacity really matches the nominal 128Gb, whereas NAND flash incorporates extra space above the nominal capacity to allow for error correction and wear leveling. For the Optane Memory, the difference between the power of two definition of 32GB and the traditional drive manufacturer’s definition of 32GB provided sufficient space, but the 800p’s metadata and error correction requires a bit more usable space be taken.

Pricing for the Intel Optane SSD 800p is similar on a $/GB basis to the Optane Memory, which is now significantly cheaper than the launch prices from last year. However, this still leaves the 800p as the most expensive consumer SSD on the market on both a capacity and per GB basis, with the 58GB model exceeding $2/GB. Even the ultra-high-end 900p is cheaper per GB than the 800p.

The Competition:

There aren’t any close competitors to the Optane SSD 800p. Intel’s Optane SSD 900p is a consumer-focused derivative of their enterprise Optane SSD DC P4800X and inherits its high power consumption and the large PCIe add-in card or U.2 form factors. The existing Optane Memory M.2 modules are closely related to the Optane SSD 800p, but their low capacities prevent them from being used for the same purposes.

Among flash-based SSDs, there are some current-generation 128GB-class NVMe SSDs but no 64GB-class drives. The small flash-based SSDs are all relatively low-end and far cheaper per GB than the Optane SSDs. The high-end NVMe SSDs that roughly match the 800p on price tend to have four times the capacity.

For this review, we are comparing the 800p against Intel’s other Optane products and against a variety of flash-based NVMe SSDs ranging from entry-level drives to the premium Samsung 960 PRO.

Intel also sent us four of the 118GB model, so for the curious we have some benchmark results from using them in RAID. For those tests, the Optane 800p M.2 modules were installed in an ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 card and tested in our enterprise SSD test system, using Windows 10 and Intel’s Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC) drivers. That enterprise test system includes all the latest firmware and OS patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, so those test results reflect the overhead of those mitigations in addition to the overhead of the NVMe RAID software. The single-drive test results were all recorded on our usual consumer SSD test system that has not received any firmware or OS patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities.

AnandTech 2017/2018 Consumer SSD Testbed
CPU	Intel Xeon E3 1240 v5
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance Gaming/OC
Chipset	Intel C232
Memory	4x 8GB G. SKILL Ripjaws DDR4-2400 CL15
Graphics	AMD Radeon HD 5450, 1920×1200@60Hz
Software	Windows 10 x64, version 1709
	Linux kernel version 4.14, fio version 3.1

• Thanks to Intel for the Xeon E3 1240 v5 CPU
• Thanks to ASRock for the E3V5 Performance Gaming/OC
• Thanks to G.SKILL for the Ripjaws DDR4-2400 RAM
• Thanks to Corsair for the RM750 power supply, Carbide 200R case, and Hydro H60 CPU cooler
• Thanks to Quarch for the XLC Programmable Power Module and accessories
• Thanks to StarTech for providing a RK2236BKF 22U rack cabinet.

Caveat: Many of our current SSD tests were not designed with tiny drives in mind. The results for the 32GB Optane Memory and the 58GB Optane SSD 800p do not represent exactly the same workload performed by the larger drives. Several of our synthetic benchmarks of sustained performance default to using a 64GB span of the drive, and in the case of the smaller drives, the test simply uses the entire drive. Likewise, the workloads represented by the ATSB Destroyer and Heavy tests don’t actually fit on such small drives. The small drives still perform the same volume of reads and writes, but the block addresses in the I/O trace that are beyond the capacity of the drive are wrapped around to fit. The ATSB Destroyer and Heavy results for those two drives could be viewed as representative of the drive’s performance as a cache device, but they do not include the effect of cache misses that would be present in a real tiered storage configuration.

AnandTech Storage Bench — The Destroyer
IntroductionAnandTech Storage Bench — The DestroyerAnandTech Storage Bench — HeavyAnandTech Storage Bench — LightRandom PerformanceSequential PerformanceMixed Read/Write PerformancePower ManagementConclusion

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Intel Optane SSD 800P Review — Tom’s Hardware

Early Verdict

The Optane SSD 800P 58GB is the size of a good cache drive designed to be your primary storage. This is a great update for your system if you have an older PC with System Response Technology.

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Features & Specifications

Intel’s 800P is the first bootable Optane SSD in the M.2 form factor, so now you can install a small SSD that should deliver big performance.

Intel’s first true consumer-focused Optane-powered SSD is plug-and-play and works as a standard boot drive. Intel designed the Optane SSD 800P for users with a small local storage footprint backed by either the cloud or secondary storage for bulk storage, so it only comes in 58GB and 118GB capacities. Like all of Intel’s Optane SSDs, the 800P uses 3D XPoint memory, which means it’s much faster than normal flash-based SSDs. To fully understand the 800P, though, we have to examine the two existing Optane products.

Intel’s Optane Memory came to market first. It is a cache drive that sits in front of a slower primary storage device, like an HDD. The drive ships in 16GB ($36.99) and 32GB ($56.99) capacities and caches frequently-used data on the high-speed device, which then speeds up applications. Optane Memory comes with several hardware requirements that limit it to newer platforms like the Z270 and X299 chipsets.

The Optane SSD 900P is designed for the prosumer/workstation market and comes in 280GB ($388) and 480GB ($599.99) capacities. This drive works like a standard storage device without any chipset stipulations, but it’s expensive and only works in a PCIe slot (or U.2). The design mirrors Intel’s enterprise Optane DC P4800X, just with different capacities and some omitted server-specific functionality.

The Optane SSD 800P borrows a little from both existing products. You get the system-agnostic functionality from the 900P, but it comes in the versatile M.2 form factor like Optane Memory. The 800P’s performance sits somewhere in the middle, and so does the price.

The Optane drives use 3D XPoint, which is Intel and Micron’s super-fast storage memory. Optane technology is similar to the first SSDs that came to market with single-level cell (SLC) NAND. Back then, SLC SSDs were radically faster than disks, much like Optane is much faster than flash, but SLC was expensive and came in low capacities. Optane technology is similar; it’s expensive and less dense than the previous-generation technology. That should improve as the technology matures, but for now, you’re going to pay a premium and capacity is limited. 

Since SSDs debuted, the manufacturers have marketed high queue depth performance. But marketing consumer SSDs like the drives used in database servers leaves shoppers with a false sense of what really matters. It’s like marketing the towing capacity of a Prius instead of listing its fuel efficiency. In contrast, Intel markets the Optane SSD 800P’s low-queue depth performance. That’s because Intel designed Optane to deliver its high performance at real-world queue depths, and that’s performance that matters.

Specifications

Intel Optane SSD 800P (58GB)

Intel Optane SSD 800P (118GB)

The Intel Optane SSD 800P comes to market in 58GB and 118GB capacities, but bigger models should come in the future. These capacities are laughable for most of our readers, but the 800Ps are actually larger than the 32GB Optane Memory caching drives. 

Intel claims the new Optane SSD 800P series is capable of up to 1,450/640 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput. Random performance reaches up to 250,000 read and 140,000 write IOPS. Intel’s documentation only lists performance at QD4, and not above, and that’s important because performance at low queue depths is the main attraction for this new type of storage device.

The Optane SSD 800P doesn’t use a DRAM buffer to cache the LBA map, which reduces component costs. The underlying 3D XPoint memory is fast enough to hold the information, and it’s non-volatile, so it doesn’t lose data when power is removed. 

The SSD communicates via the NVMe protocol over a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface, but most PCIe SSDs support a x4 connection. In some systems, a x2 connection can reduce power consumption by turning off the extra two lanes. 3D XPoint memory uses more power than flash, so the extra power savings helps in some cases, like notebooks.

Features

3D XPoint is a write-in-place memory, so it doesn’t have to use the same read, modify, write cycle like normal flash-based SSDs. That means performance doesn’t degrade due to dirty cells, so you’ll get the same performance regardless of the previous workload. In our testing, we’ve also noticed that Optane devices don’t lose performance based on the amount of data you store on the drive. Most flash-based SSDs slow down once you fill the drive more than halfway, and performance continues to decline as you add more data. With Optane, all of the old rules go out the window. It offers the same performance regardless of how full the drive is or how long you have used it.

3D XPoint is also more durable than flash, so the drives have more endurance. The drives also offer unmatched performance at low queue depths, especially with random read workloads. That enhances the user experience by accelerating system responsiveness.

We discovered an interesting, but unsupported, feature. We were able to use an 800P as a caching device with the Optane Memory software on our Z270 system. We’re not sure if Intel intended to leave this undocumented feature open, or if the 800P’s device ID is just close enough to Optane Memory for it to work. Currently, the Optane SSD 800P will work as an Intel Optane Memory caching drive, which is nice if you’re searching for a bulkier cache drive.

Pricing, Warranty & Endurance

Intel never claimed Optane would be a low-cost affair, at least until the memory matures. The 58GB model retails for $129, and the 118GB Optane SSD weighs in at $199. The 118GB drive has a 365 TBW (Terabytes Written) rating, and that drops to 181 TBW for the 58GB drive. As a general rule of thumb, the drives support up to 200GB of data writes per day over the five-year warranty period.

Packaging

Image 1 of 3

The 800P’s retail package looks like Optane Memory’s package. Intel covers the key features on the back, but it doesn’t list any performance details that would help retail shoppers compare the specifications to other products.

A Closer Look

Image 1 of 4

Intel uses a proprietary controller on the Optane SSD 800P that was likely designed by the Altera team that Intel acquired. Intel hasn’t been very forthcoming about the architecture other than listing the obvious PCIe 3.0 x2 bus specification.

Both capacities use two Optane packages on a single-sided design to increase compatibility with notebooks and other small enclosures. The back of the drive has to be the best looking of any SSD we’ve ever tested. We want to mount it upside down in a system with a see-through side panel.

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Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom’s Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.

Overview of 58GB and 118GB Intel Optane SSD 800P SSDs

2018 Test Methodology

Intel began pushing 3D XPoint memory into the mainstream segment with 16GB and 32GB cache modules, to which it later added a top a line of «real» Optane SSD 900P at 280 and 480 GB. But both are specific goods. Optane Memory modules, however, are aimed at the mass market — that is still the most massive part of it, where solid-state drives are not used at all, hard drives are preferred to them. That is, they are certainly not aimed at computer enthusiasts. And not even entirely for DIY enthusiasts, but more for manufacturers of finished computers, which can now inexpensively offer slightly faster systems to customers. But, of course, they will be “faster” only in comparison with the canonical version — when one hard drive is used for everything (both programs and data). And the resulting version has a right to exist, but the “optanized hard drive” is still not a direct competitor to the solid-state drive. Accordingly, the most demanding users who have already managed to try out SSDs did not pay much attention to Optane Memory.

Optane SSD 900P is a completely different story: these are “real” top-end SSDs, “turned” from the server line and having a capacity of 280 or 480 GB (and a 960 GB option has recently appeared — in the form of Optane SSD 905P). However, such amounts of new-type memory are too expensive — many still consider NAND-flash SSDs too expensive, and new memory is four times more expensive. At the same time, the server roots of the family also affect the performance — you cannot insert such a device into a laptop, for example. However, you shouldn’t put it there in any case, since no one really cared about the power consumption of such models 🙂 In general, these are very fast (sometimes uncontestedly fast) devices, but suitable only for wealthy enthusiasts.

But the recently appeared Optane SSD 800P family is designed specifically for the mass market — both in terms of prices and performance. True, in this case, it was not without nuances …

Intel Optane SSD 800P 58 GB

Intel Optane SSD 800P 118GB

The first nuance is immediately visible to the naked eye: capacity. So far, the production process of 3D XPoint memory is not so debugged as to allow it to become much cheaper, therefore, it was necessary to fit into the target segment “up to $200” by voluntaristic methods: only a 120 GB drive costs so much (of which 118 GB is available to the user). Half the capacity device has a suggested price of $129, which is more expensive than, for example, 760p at 256 GB. The RSP of the older modification is exactly the same as 760p for 512 GB, so from the point of view of an economical user, the new family of drives is just as meaningless as the previous ones: performance is performance, but 256-512 GB “for life” is quite enough (and often allows manage with one such device), and 58-118 GB is just “for the system”. It is clear that in their class (in terms of capacity) Optane SSD 800P will be the fastest and hardiest, but they will have to compete with completely different drives than budget models “up to 120 GB”.

However, to some extent, we can talk about price reductions — we recall that the caching modules of the Optane Memory series for 16 and 32 GB entered the market with recommended prices of $50 and $100, i.e. just over three dollars per gigabyte of capacity. Now it turns out less than three — and the older modification 800R costs less than two. However, real retail prices have already adjusted accordingly, which is not surprising: these devices are the closest relatives. And, contrary to the originally announced plans, they even turned out to have the same functionality, i.e. «adult» SSDs can actually be used for caching hard drives!

Given their capacity, in practice this can turn out to be quite interesting, but the price, again, objects again: as mentioned above, for comparable money you can buy a “regular” 256-512 GB solid-state drive, “blame” on not only the system and main applications, but also most of the programs and data that need quick access, and leave the hard drive just a repository of archival information.

In addition, the close relationship between Optane Memory and Optane SSD 800P has its drawbacks. It is easy to guess that these drives use the same controller — which has nothing to do with the server multi-channel solution of the 9 family00P and limited to PCIe 3.0 x2 interface (similar to some budget SSDs). Accordingly, in scenarios with sequential access, performance records should not be expected — at least.

But the advantages of this family are traditional for drives based on 3D XPoint: due to low latency, such devices demonstrate outstanding performance in random read tasks on short queues. In addition, the implementation features allow 800P (as well as other Optane) to do without caching operations, which in modern SSDs has already become multi-level: both computer RAM and its own DRAM buffer are used, the capacity of which is measured in hundreds of megabytes, or even in gigabytes. Accordingly, the “recorded” data becomes physically recorded far from immediately, but must “fall through” from level to level and only then “get” to the non-volatile carrier. And if power is lost at this moment, then they may not get there, and this problem has to be solved by workarounds. At the same time, devices based on 3D XPoint do not have such a problem at all: the information is entered into memory immediately. Not only do they not have a DRAM buffer, but write caching by means of the OS is disabled — and it is impossible to enable it. So, as we already wrote, Optane is not only about speed.

However, this does not help them with capacity. More precisely, with the price — in fact, these parameters are interconnected. For most users, this shortcoming will be decisive. Yes, and warranty limitations are also usually related to the capacity of devices, although for both modifications Intel declares the same 365 TB for a five-year period. Not bad for these little ones, but that’s only a little more than the 288TB of a 760p at 512GB. It is clear that the latter achieves such a result due to the fact that with the same number of entries there will be fewer overwrites, however, high capacity is useful not only for this, but also in itself 🙂

And some of the potential buyers will be scared off by the initially limited performance. Although it is worth being afraid of the latter — we decided (as usual) to check directly.

At the same time, they took advantage of the presence «on hand» of two copies of the older modification and combined them into a RAID0 array. The procedure is no more complicated than for SATA devices, but you need to connect both drives to the PCIe chipset controller. Moreover, x2 + x2 is just x4, namely, the DMI 3.0 interface has such a bandwidth, so it will not limit the speed of work — unlike using an SSD with PCIe 3.0 x4 (theoretically, there may not be enough speed for the array). An extra hop in the form of a chipset will always have a negative effect on access delays, but you can get rid of this only by changing the platform. We did not do this — anyway, from a practical point of view, the idea is not very optimal: Optane 900P at 280 GB will cost even less than two 800P at 118 GB, the capacity of such a single SSD is higher, there are no difficulties in using it in a desktop system, and practically nothing depends on the platform. Unless you can install such an array in a laptop or some mini-PCs, but not 900P, but this scenario still looks too far-fetched. However, it is still interesting to get to know him, at least theoretically, and we will do it.

Competitors

As mentioned above, the cost of 800R echoes the cost of 760r — only the capacity for the same money will differ four times. But the performance can be compared directly. Which we will do, since we have already studied 760p for 256 and 512 GB. And Optane SSD 900P 280 GB is also useful to us — since it is to some extent comparable to an array of 800P in a number of indicators. In principle, these three devices will be enough for us.

Testing

Testing procedure

The procedure is described in detail in separate article . There you can get acquainted with the hardware and software used.

Application performance

As has been said many times, any SSD is not a bottleneck in a typical system, so the performance of the computer will be determined by other components (or by the user). If we remove the delays that arise through their fault, i. e. evaluate the potential capabilities of the drives themselves, then there is a noticeable difference. But only potentially, firstly. And, if you already have the desire and ability to pay for it, it makes sense to immediately reach the level of Optane 900P: yes, very expensive, but at least more or less decent capacity and uncompromising performance. The 800P, as expected, has a «lower pipe and thinner smoke», and even creating a RAID0 array from a couple of devices still does not allow you to catch up with the 900P in performance — but it allows you to catch up with it in price (and, taking into account the capacity, even overtake). Unless such an option is more compact — it will fit not only in a typical desktop. However, occupying both slots of the top «gaming» NUC, for example, and getting by with such a capacity «for everything», as it seems to us, is not very interesting. If you already use the Optane 800P in such conditions, then one is by giving the second M.2 slot for a “regular” (even SATA) solid-state drive with a capacity of 500 GB or more. Only the last one can usually be limited, but not one 800R.

Sequential Operations

Bandwidth is the main limiting factor, and the 800P line, as already mentioned, is limited to PCIe 3.0 x2. Accordingly, the performance of a single device is not impressive — the inexpensive 760P is noticeably faster. But «external parallelism» in the form of RAID0 turns out to be noticeably more efficient than internal, which provides an ultra-linear increase in performance and the first place among all the tested.

But to obtain high results when recording, nevertheless, a larger number of memory channels and its chips are required. Line 900R it is — it is absent in 800R. However, if we evaluate only drives of the same capacity, then both modifications of the 800P are beyond competition — devices based on 60-120 GB NAND flash are much slower. And in general, this is the domain of SATA drives — most of the lines of NVMe devices with 240/256 GB are just beginning. Only now, most buyers will compare by cost, and the latter, as already mentioned, differs by about four times, i. e. for the same money you can buy either 760r for 512 GB or 800R for 118 GB. But the latter is not always faster either.

Random access

It’s easy to see that 800P series drives sometimes lag behind inexpensive (generally) 760p series SSDs and similar ones. But more often — faster; especially when it comes to single queue length reads, which Optane has traditionally excelled at due to its lower native latency. Another question is that this is also characteristic of the 900P — and in other scenarios, the performance of the older family is noticeably higher. And it is not possible to achieve this level by combining a pair of 800Ps into an array — for obvious reasons, not all operations are accelerated at all here. But the price is already comparable and even higher.

Fundamentally the results are the same. Unless we operate in this program with somewhat shorter queues, which enhances the advantages of Optan on read operations. But not only the 800P series.

But with a single queue, but large blocks, an array of two 800P is sometimes able to bypass a single 900P. But not fundamentally and not always. Single devices are slower. Much faster than traditional SSDs, but with such a difference in prices and volumes (which are basically related things), this is unlikely to make much difference.

Working with large files

Given the current capacity of the Optane SSD 800P, this group of tests already looks like a mockery by name, and a couple of our templates cannot even be used on the younger representative of the line. But anyway, let’s see what happens.

Reading is predictable. Especially in multi-threaded mode, where the interface is already important, which is slow here. Moreover, even RAID is “deflated”, despite the optimism of low-level tests. That is, the result, of course, is significantly higher than for a single device, but against the background of a single device 900P, and inexpensive «traditional» SSDs of the 760p family are not impressive.

In terms of recording, however, everything is not so bad — especially for a 58 GB drive: there are no competitors in this capacitive class. On the other hand, the same capacity is too small, and you have to pay for it “as for normal”. And no records in any case — for the sake of obtaining them, you can choose 900R, but not 800R at all.

And a complete fiasco: the younger 800R cannot pass these tests at all (too small), the older one lagged behind the similar one in price (but not in capacity) 760r, and the array noticeably lost 900.

Ratings

On short bursts for random reads, the Optane SSD 800P is naturally good — but no better than the 900P. In other scenarios, as we saw above, they can also lose to inexpensive SSDs on TLC memory. Generally speaking, somewhere in between.

And taking into account the results of high-level tests — a little, but «above». Over ordinary SSDs, of course — such a wow effect, as in the case of 900P, cannot be obtained even with the help of a couple of devices in RAID0.

Prices

The table below shows the average retail prices of the SSDs tested today, as of the time you read this article: high capacity. Performance aside, the Optane SSD 800P is a very expensive drive for this capacity. If in aggregate, then… At the moment, representatives of this line cannot claim to be a successful purchase: for the same money you can buy a device that will not always be slower, but always much larger in capacity. And if you really want something uncompromising in performance, then you can look at 900R is more expensive, but always faster, and a volume of 280 or 480 GB (and in the recently appeared 905R — 960 GB in general, albeit very expensive) will be more often sufficient for practical use. 800R against this background — neither here nor there …

At least at the current price level — which tend to decrease. And this unequivocally shows that the production process of new memory is constantly improving, which allows Intel to gradually expand the range of products using it, while simultaneously reducing the unit cost of each gigabyte. But while we are still at the very beginning of this path. It will be possible to start talking about some serious progress when Optane 800P 118 GB will cost comparable to 760p 256 GB (let it happen only to their heirs — it doesn’t matter), and a model with 200+ GB of memory will enter the price level of 512 GB SSD 3D XPoint. In other words, with capacities from (and not to ) 120 GB and the price of a gigabyte is a couple of times higher than for NAND flash, such drives will be of practical interest, since all the advantages of the technology embedded in them will work. And until this moment, we, in fact, are observing only a declaration of intent, nothing more. Even if this declaration is released in the form of a finished retail product that can be purchased and used, in the current implementation, the desire to “acquire” is unlikely to arise in large numbers. 900P, despite the price, is interesting for its outstanding performance, and NAND flash drives provide a sufficient level of performance, coupled with sufficient capacity for practical use. The 800P line, alas, cannot yet boast of either one or the other. But its attractiveness, of course, will increase as prices fall.

The issue of using such a (relatively) high capacity drive as a caching drive remained behind the scenes. But this is a completely separate story that needs careful practical verification.

Intel Optane 800p — SSD for the system / Habr

saul
March 15, 2018 at 09:15 AM

Intel Blog Computer Hardware Storage

The line of Intel Optane drives using 3D XPoint memory modules has been replenished with new models from the consumer segment. In addition to the Optane Memory family, designed for caching needs, enthusiasts now have access to the 58 and 118 GB Optane 800p series SSDs, which can be considered as a carrier option for the computer’s operating system. Our colleagues from the Anandtech website have already tested the new SSDs in several configurations; Under the cut you will find detailed specifications of Intel Optane 800p and the results of the main benchmarks.

So, Optane 800p SSDs are built on the same hardware platform as Optane Memory, but at the same time they have several times the volume and slightly better characteristics. In general, the Optane consumer lineup now looks like this.

Model	Optane SSD 800p		Optane Memory
Volume	118GB	58GB	32GB	16GB
Form factor	M.2 2280 B+M key		M.2 2280 B+M key
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x2		PCIe 3.0 x2
Memory	128Gb 20nm Intel 3D XPoint		128Gb 20nm Intel 3D XPoint
Last reading	1450 MB/s		1350 MB/s	900 MB/s
Last entry	640 MB/s		290 MB/s	145 MB/s
Random reading	250k IOPS		240k IOPS	190k IOPS
Random entry	140k IOPS		65k IOPS	35k IOPS
Read delays	6. 75µs		7µs	8µs
Write delays	18µs		18µs	30µs
Cons. working	3.75W		3.5W	3.5W
Cons. idle	8mW	8mW	1W	1W
Durable	365TB	365 TB	182.5TB	182.5TB
Price	$199	$129	$77	$44

As you can see, due to the small size of the 3D XPoint module, even at 128 GB, we managed to get a significant increase in write speed due to parallelization of streams. However, in general, the performance characteristics do not look outstanding. Another significant improvement is support for the power saving mode (Idle State). But the price per storage unit has remained unchanged, and this still makes Intel Optane drives expensive compared to other SSDs.

Anandtech experts had several Intel Optane 800p modules at their disposal, which made it possible to test not only individual drives, but also RAID arrays of them based on Intel VROC technology. Here are the results of the main benchmarks — the full test results can be found on the Anandtech website.

Destroyer is an extreme test that emulates a long-term active load on the storage.

Communication speed. Intel Optane 800p is fast, but doesn’t outperform the best Flash drives. VROC drags performance down.

Average delays — the picture is the same.

Power consumption — excellent performance, 800r outperform everyone.

So, Intel continues to expand its line of Optane drives. In the face of the 800p family, we see another step in the direction of consumers — they are offered a full-fledged SSD that can be used alone in a mobile computer, comparable in performance to the best Flash SSDs, and in some ways superior to them.