Could someone explain the advantage of Intel® Optane™ memory.
From reading about it it sounds like it is similar to the old cache
that has been in computers for decades, BUT maintains its contents when
the computer shuts down.

If this is how it works would it give a normal user a noticeable
increase in performance.
Normal user = one who runs a standalone computer, doing spread sheets,
word processing, email, browsing and online database access ie banks,
record systems, etc.: sometime at the same time.

knuttle wrote:

> Could someone explain the advantage of Intel® Optane™ memory.
>
> From reading about it it sounds like it is similar to the old cache
> that has been in computers for decades, BUT maintains its contents when
> the computer shuts down.
>
> If this is how it works would it give a normal user a noticeable
> increase in performance.
>
> Normal user = one who runs a standalone computer, doing spread sheets,
> word processing, email, browsing and online database access ie banks,
> record systems, etc.: sometime at the same time.

Instead of wasting money on Optane, users moved to SSD drives,
especially the NVMe SSDs in an m.2 slot on the mobo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint

For end users, Optane died. It was typically paired with mechanical
drives as a high-speed buffer. Since it was a caching scheme, it only
worked on bits that had been previously accessed, not when you needed to
access something new, similar to how RAM caching has worked on HDDs for
decades (but without the permanance). First access won't be any faster
then direct HDD access. It's repeated access that gets faster by
getting from the faster buffer. I haven't looked into predictive
prefetching to see if the driver figures out what you might access anew
that you haven't yet accessed.

Mobos may still support Optane, because jobbers often upgrade using old
parts instead of build new setups from scratch. They don't want to go
whole-hog buying new parts, and instead migrate old parts into a new
build. When users want faster mass storage than for HDDs, they've moved
to SSDs, and to NVMe SSDs for mobo that supports it (has m.2 slots).

https://www.pcworld.com/article/393961/intel-quietly-kills-its-face-melting-optane-desktop-ssds.html

https://gigabytekingdom.com/optane-vs-nvme/

Do you have a spinner drive in your laptop? Have you looked at the cost
of getting Optane memory to cache your HDD versus spending the money to
get faster NVMe? You didn't mention the brand and model of your laptop,
so no one can go lookup for you its specs to see if NVMe is supported.
I don't the penetration of m.2 into laptops to make use of NVMe. Maybe
if Paul participates in this thread then he can enlighten.

On 5/14/2022 11:58 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
> knuttle wrote:
>
>> Could someone explain the advantage of Intel® Optane™ memory.
>>
>> From reading about it it sounds like it is similar to the old cache
>> that has been in computers for decades, BUT maintains its contents when
>> the computer shuts down.
>>
>> If this is how it works would it give a normal user a noticeable
>> increase in performance.
>>
>> Normal user = one who runs a standalone computer, doing spread sheets,
>> word processing, email, browsing and online database access ie banks,
>> record systems, etc.: sometime at the same time.
>
> Instead of wasting money on Optane, users moved to SSD drives,
> especially the NVMe SSDs in an m.2 slot on the mobo.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint
>
> For end users, Optane died. It was typically paired with mechanical
> drives as a high-speed buffer. Since it was a caching scheme, it only
> worked on bits that had been previously accessed, not when you needed to
> access something new, similar to how RAM caching has worked on HDDs for
> decades (but without the permanance). First access won't be any faster
> then direct HDD access. It's repeated access that gets faster by
> getting from the faster buffer. I haven't looked into predictive
> prefetching to see if the driver figures out what you might access anew
> that you haven't yet accessed.
>
> Mobos may still support Optane, because jobbers often upgrade using old
> parts instead of build new setups from scratch. They don't want to go
> whole-hog buying new parts, and instead migrate old parts into a new
> build. When users want faster mass storage than for HDDs, they've moved
> to SSDs, and to NVMe SSDs for mobo that supports it (has m.2 slots).
>
> https://www.pcworld.com/article/393961/intel-quietly-kills-its-face-melting-optane-desktop-ssds.html
>
> https://gigabytekingdom.com/optane-vs-nvme/
>
> Do you have a spinner drive in your laptop? Have you looked at the cost
> of getting Optane memory to cache your HDD versus spending the money to
> get faster NVMe? You didn't mention the brand and model of your laptop,
> so no one can go lookup for you its specs to see if NVMe is supported.
> I don't the penetration of m.2 into laptops to make use of NVMe. Maybe
> if Paul participates in this thread then he can enlighten.
Thanks that is kinda what I thought it was.
I am looking to buy a new laptop that I will be using but it will belong
to the chruch we go to.

On 5/14/2022 12:22 PM, knuttle wrote:
> On 5/14/2022 11:58 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> knuttle wrote:
>>
>>> Could someone explain the advantage of  Intel® Optane™ memory.
>>>
>>>   From reading about it it sounds like it is similar to the old cache
>>> that has been in computers for decades, BUT maintains its contents when
>>> the computer shuts down.
>>>
>>> If this is how it works would it give a normal user a noticeable
>>> increase in performance.
>>>
>>> Normal user = one who runs a standalone computer, doing spread sheets,
>>> word processing, email, browsing and online database access ie banks,
>>> record systems,  etc.: sometime at the same time.
>>
>> Instead of wasting money on Optane, users moved to SSD drives,
>> especially the NVMe SSDs in an m.2 slot on the mobo.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint
>>
>> For end users, Optane died.  It was typically paired with mechanical
>> drives as a high-speed buffer.  Since it was a caching scheme, it only
>> worked on bits that had been previously accessed, not when you needed to
>> access something new, similar to how RAM caching has worked on HDDs for
>> decades (but without the permanance).  First access won't be any faster
>> then direct HDD access.  It's repeated access that gets faster by
>> getting from the faster buffer.  I haven't looked into predictive
>> prefetching to see if the driver figures out what you might access anew
>> that you haven't yet accessed.
>>
>> Mobos may still support Optane, because jobbers often upgrade using old
>> parts instead of build new setups from scratch.  They don't want to go
>> whole-hog buying new parts, and instead migrate old parts into a new
>> build.  When users want faster mass storage than for HDDs, they've moved
>> to SSDs, and to NVMe SSDs for mobo that supports it (has m.2 slots).
>>
>> https://www.pcworld.com/article/393961/intel-quietly-kills-its-face-melting-optane-desktop-ssds.html
>>
>> https://gigabytekingdom.com/optane-vs-nvme/
>>
>> Do you have a spinner drive in your laptop?  Have you looked at the cost
>> of getting Optane memory to cache your HDD versus spending the money to
>> get faster NVMe?  You didn't mention the brand and model of your laptop,
>> so no one can go lookup for you its specs to see if NVMe is supported.
>> I don't the penetration of m.2 into laptops to make use of NVMe.  Maybe
>> if Paul participates in this thread then he can enlighten.
> Thanks that is kinda what I thought it was.
>
> I am looking to buy a new laptop that I will be using but it will belong to the chruch we go to.

Optane is byte-addressable flash based on a different chemical
than ordinary flash. It has a higher power consumption.
It's possible this is similar to the HP Labs research into
Memristors, as at least the tech sounds similar (bulk resistance change
used as a storage mechanism).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint

As a flash device, it has been proposed as an extension for memory
on some servers. If you had an Exchange server with 128GB of real
RAM, you could use a PCIe-connected Optane device, to extend the
"memory" to 1TB. It's because the tech is byte addressable, you
could use it as memory, instead of considering it as having
512 byte sectors as an orientation. (Intel charged a premium
for this, almost as if they wanted their factory to fail up.)

It's not really as fast as RAM, when you consider the system
busses it used for interconnect. Still, Intel thought people
would consider it in place of $20000 worth of RAM sticks. It
has a higher endurance than NAND Flash, but we're not really
sure how much higher. Intel defines a number for it, but the
hype concerning Memristor was that it would end up a higher
number than Intel quotes. This is sorta similar to Helium hard
drives, where you would think the Helium would extend the
service characteristics of drives, make them bulletproof etc.
Yet, a Helium drive still has a 10000 foot service ceiling
(when you should be able to take it up Everest and not
park the car in Denver).

There are still a few smallish Optanes drives available for $3000 each.
The outer skin has a heatsink on it.

The PCI Express board version, I think those might have been
running around 23 watts or so.

In response, Samsung tried to counter with ZNAND? version
of Flash. Which cut some latency number about in half. But
you don't really hear about ZNAND as such any more either.
Since Samsung has nothing to fear from Intel, there's no
point marketing a special version of Flash, just to
"make a benchmark number". ZNAND is probably just a
modification of the wiring and addressing pattern, to make
a flash that was a bit faster.

None of these have much of anything to do with a church laptop :-)

If you use Optane as a cache, it could wear out, and I never
seem to see a good resolution during in-service failures.
It ends up being an unnecessary complication for some
data-recovery person. The people who have problems with it,
don't seem to know it's in there, and so they're ill
prepared for a lesson that starts with "Failure of xxx".

If you had one of the $3000 Optane drives (which functions
as your boot drive), you would do backups as normal. It's
not a failure-prone thing. It is just when used as a
cache (a speed improvement), that a failure tears a hole
in some set of files off your main storage, and nobody seems
to know what to do next :-)

If you receive a computer with an Optane cache, you can
make a backup of your storage, to an external drive. Then
follow the procedure for disabling the RSTe that operates
two devices as a cache, then restore the user data to the
"ordinary" storage. The advantage of doing that, is you
never have to discover what a pain it is to deal with when
real files get damaged. The cache in that case, can be
unplugged and put in the laptop cardboard box as a souvenir.

While you're not too likely to see it in a product today,
if you did happen to receive Optane, I think it can be removed.

In the same way as I don't recommend RAID to home users
(because home users never train up on handling "Degrade"
and "Fail"), it's for similar reasons I recommend to people
that they disable any complicated Optane thingy. We need
device operation, where people can be trained to do backups,
to know how much data can be lost (since the last time
they did a backup) and so on. A much easier to understand
operational model.

Nobody wants to suffer hair loss from stupid toys like this :-)
That's where bald people come from. A spiffy laptop with
an 8GB/sec ordinary flash drive in it, that's all a
person needs, right ?

So if the prospective purchase had some other desirable
features (Retina-class display), and it happened to have
Optane in it, you can probable deal successfully with
the Optane bit. It should not be any more complicated
than doing backup/restore on any of your other laptops.

I wouldn't mind if someone gave me one of the $3000 Optane
drives as my "boot drive". It's less likely to wear out
than a $100 flash. It's just in the cache configuration,
nobody seems to know how healthy it is, or what to do
when the cache scheme breaks.

Paul