Intel discontinuing consumer Optane SSDs

HoneyBadger

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Those of you considering Optane 900p/905p devices for your special vdevs or SLOG devices, you might want to pick one up now before they're OOS, if this has any validity to it.

Source from Tom's Hardware; I'm still searching for the official Intel discontinuation document. Edit: Thanks to @Etorix - the bad news, in PDF format ( http://qdms.intel.com/dm/i.aspx/AF3C49EB-DCB1-4CCB-A56C-5E8379BD4B3B/PCN118037-00.pdf ) The Intel ARK site still shows consumer Optane cards as being "Launched" with no EOL date, but considering the lack of fanfare when the Optane M15 was cancelled I can believe this one.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/i...ly-ssds-for-consumers-no-replacements-planned

"Intel will not provide a new large capacity Optane Memory SSD as a transition product for the client market segment. Intel will focus on the new Optane Memory H20 with Solid State Storage for the client market segment."

The Optane H20 is a hybrid Optane/QLC NAND device which will not be useful for the same purpose at the higher-performance 900p/905p, or even the smaller M.2 Optane Memory M10/800p cards as "budget SLOGs" for low-bandwidth home-lab use.

And while the new Optane P5800X packs some significantly high performance for the enterprise segment, it's likely to carry the same eye-watering price as its P4800X predecessor, making it unappealing for small shops or home users.
 
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Well that is a bummer!
 

Chris Moore

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I saw an article about that today. I have not bought one but it is a real shame that they are dropping it. I guess it just wasn't making them the money they thought it would. They probably gave too many of them away to YouTube personalities.
 

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HoneyBadger

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I saw an article about that today. I have not bought one but it is a real shame that they are dropping it. I guess it just wasn't making them the money they thought it would. They probably gave too many of them away to YouTube personalities.
I think it's a case of the "MP3 Effect" or the "Good Enough Effect" - cheap TLC SSDs are "good enough" for most users that Optane no longer has a market. And the 16/32G "caching" modules were a Band-Aid solution for regular drives. The combination of Optane + QLC actually works out well for most consumers, it just happens to be bad for ZFS users (and anyone who doesn't have M.2 slots that bifurcate down to the x2 level)

Just loops back to citing the Tom's article as a source, as did most of the other sites. I tried digging through Intel press releases but came up empty-handed.
 

Etorix

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Herr_Merlin

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Well the small u.2 100gb p48x fluctuate between 130 and 170e that's an option for home. Or go for the STEC Zeus line.. they are cheap on ebay as well.. even brand new
 

indy

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Thanks for the heads-up.
I would be looking to buy 2x 16GB M10 as mirrored boot devices and to host the system dataset.

Can someone confirm this works?
All I was able to find was that it *should* work.
 

HoneyBadger

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Thanks for the heads-up.
I would be looking to buy 2x 16GB M10 as mirrored boot devices and to host the system dataset.

Can someone confirm this works?
All I was able to find was that it *should* work.
Provided that your OS board UEFI/BIOS supports NVMe boot it should work fine; however, they're definitely overkill for boot devices and you might end up battling UEFI issues. A regular pair of SATA devices will probably be less troublesome and leave the NVMe channels free for higher-performance duties.
 
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indy

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The OS would be TrueNAS... it should work as the hardware guide lists M.2 as supported boot devices.
For my next home server I want to forgo the HBA and which leaves few SATA ports but many PCIE lanes.
Coupled with the write endurance these seem like a great fit.
 

HoneyBadger

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The OS would be TrueNAS... it should work as the hardware guide lists M.2 as supported boot devices.
For my next home server I want to forgo the HBA and which leaves few SATA ports but many PCIE lanes.
Coupled with the write endurance these seem like a great fit.
Whoops. Meant to say "motherboard UEFI/BIOS" - but a new enough board will have support for NVMe boot.

It's up to you but ultimately it will work just fine. If the 32G ones were easier to come by I would suggest doing some voodoo to partition them and have your swap partition there as well, but with 16G being the minimum suggested boot device that might be ill-advised.
 

j_r0dd

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Well I was waiting to get an Optane for when I upgraded my server this year. I definitely think it's overkill for a boot device. I vaguely remember seeing that SCALE has 20GB min for boot device. Either way I just scooped up a couple 16GB Optanes for $22/ea off amazon. Plenty big enough for a single 10gb connection to my server. Ugh canceled the order after seeing the abysmal write speeds. I guess that's why they were only $22
 
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Etorix

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Micron has sold the plant which made 3D XPoint memory to TI. TI intends to repurpose the facility to make processors.


Either Intel invests to make its own persistent memory or the entire Optane line, including data centre drives, will be discontinued. We shall find out soon.

Update: This looks like good news (quite unexpectedly, I'd say).
 
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HoneyBadger

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Micron has sold the plant which made 3D XPoint memory to TI. TI intends to repurpose the facility to make processors.


Either Intel invests to make its own persistent memory or the entire Optane line, including data centre drives, will be discontinued. We shall find out soon.

Update: This looks like good news (quite unexpectedly, I'd say).

That's what I get for waking up late today.

ARK sheets are available on the P1600X series and they look pretty nice.


They're specced at roughly twice the endurance (TBW) and performance (random IOPS) numbers of the old Optane 800p series 118G/58G cards. They completely crush the old 16G/32G M10 cards from both standpoints, and they're neck-and-neck performance with the P4801X 100G (although losing by a 10x factor in write endurance, so don't think you can cheap out for an enterprise.)

Assuming a reasonable MSRP, these are going to be the homelab SLOG of choice - and to boot, they come in M.2 2280 form factor as opposed to the larger "more enterprise-y" M.2 22110.
 

Etorix

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Endurance is the catch (Intel does not want to cannibalise its P4801X!), but they also sport lower power consumption and twice the capacity does not buy a twice higher write throughput, the 58 GB is quite good to begin with, so it indeed looks like these P1600X will be popular SLOGs here. :smile:
 
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