There's a new SLOG champion in town (Intel Optane 900p SSD)

[Stux]

Intel have released a more affordable Optane based AIC than the P4800x. It has, say, half of the performance, and third of the endurance, and is available in 280GB, which is rated for 2GB/s sequential write speed...

And 10DWPD.

Which basically means this replaces the P3700, which other than the P4800x is pretty much the ideal SLOG drive... Shame about the price... of the P3700

The MSRP on the 900p is $389, I expect you'll actually be able to get them cheaper... whcih makes them cheaper than a P3700, with better performance, and the same endurance. Wow.

And it has PLP.

From what I can see, this now looks like the ideal SLOG drive for 10gbe servers.

Above chart pretty much says that you can expect >1GB/s in SLOG duty... even at QD1 (ie only one connection)

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11953/the-intel-optane-ssd-900p-review
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-optane-900p-ssd-released-aic-u-2-form-factors/

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...aming-enthusiast-ssds/optane-900p-series.html
https://ark.intel.com/products/1236...Series-280GB-12-Height-PCIe-x4-20nm-3D-Xpoint

 

[Chris Moore]

Another must have item.

 

[Ericloewe]

And it has PLP.

Technically, it doesn't. They say they can get away with it because the controller is actually pretty straightforward and doesn't even have significant amounts of RAM. I guess that's valid...

 

[Stux]

Technically, it doesn't. They say they can get away with it because the controller is actually pretty straightforward and doesn't even have significant amounts of RAM. I guess that's valid...

ARK says it has "Enhanced Powerloss Data Protection", which intel describes as "Enhanced Power Loss Data Protection prepares the SSD for unexpected system power loss by minimizing data in transition in temporary buffers, and uses on-board power-loss protection capacitance to provide enough energy for the SSD firmware to move data from the transfer buffer and other temporary buffers to the NAND, thus protecting system and user data."

Of course, doesn't mean there has to be a giant bank of capacitors, but certainly makes it sound like there's enough capacitance to ensure data in flight.

That's really the trick intel uses to get good sync write speeds on all their enterprise/high end SSDs, because it means the drive can confirm transfers before writing fully to ... NAND3DXpoint.

What they don't say it has is the "end to end data protection" that the more expensive ones have.

It should be enough for a SLOG, as its the same thing that the 750 SSD claims. Actually better, as the 750 specifically states that it DOESN'T have End to End Data Protection.

"End-to-End Data Protection ensures integrity of stored data from the computer to the SSD and back"

Which I guess ZFS takes care of anyway. Although it would be good on a SLOG, since without a mirror, you'd be SOL if you had a data corruption in a replay scenario.

 

[Ericloewe]

The PCB doesn't have much beyond bypassing:
https://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/5924#4

 

[Rand]

Does anyone have this running?

I get a not so nice dump in my VM when passing the 280gb version through... O/C works fine with a p3700...

 

[Ericloewe]

You have one already? Awesome. It panics your VM? Not so awesome.

Page not present... That's weird. Maybe it's a race condition in the NVMe driver... Can you try this on bare metal?

 

[Rand]

Picked one up from one of the the guys winning it at CitizenCon who only wanted the Sabre;)

Works fine in ESX from the looks, but yes should try BM. Let me try to set something up

 

[Rand]

So physical is working fine. Weird

 

[Stux]

So physical is working fine. Weird

Which version of ESXi are you using? Latest patch level?

 

[Rand]

Yep.
vmware -vl
VMware ESXi 6.5.0 build-6765664
VMware ESXi 6.5.0 Update 1

Edit: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/26508

 

[Sisyphe]

ARK pages have been updated, they now indicate 900p models do not offer "Enhanced Power Loss Data Protection":

https://ark.intel.com/products/1236...Series-280GB-12-Height-PCIe-x4-20nm-3D-Xpoint
https://ark.intel.com/products/1236...00P-Series-280GB-2_5in-PCIe-x4-20nm-3D-XPoint
https://ark.intel.com/products/1236...Series-480GB-12-Height-PCIe-x4-20nm-3D-Xpoint

 

[brando56894]

Seems like massive overkill for an SLOG and would be better suited as an L2ARC.

 

[Sisyphe]

Well things are not so clear yet. See this interesting article at TinkerTry:
https://tinkertry.com/intel-optane-900p-should-be-great-for-home-lab-enthusiasts

Power Loss Protection.

According to the Intel spec sheets, the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series doesn't offer what Intel calls Enhanced Power Loss Data Protection.


According to the Intel spec sheets, the Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X Series does offer what Intel calls Enhanced Power Loss Data Protection.


Is this a concern, especially if you're considering using the 900P in a completely unsupported use-case, such as in the vSAN caching layer? This warrants further investigation.


Meanwhile, see what chuckula says at phoronix here:


Absolutely none of Intel's Optane parts (including the $3000+ enterprise drives) include large capacitors for power loss prevention.


BUT: EVERY Optane product on the market now including the consumer drive Phoronix tested and even the cheap 16GB cache drives provides power loss protection.


That's because none of these drives use a RAM cache at all and the data are stored fast enough that PLP is an inherent feature of the drive that doesn't need extra circuitry.


Update on the 21st of November:

I do not yet have an answer from Intel to help get clarity on Enhanced Power Loss Data Protection on the 900P versus the P4800X Optane parts


I've just ordered mine for SLOG, so hope it gets confirmed :)

 

[Sisyphe]

No PLP.. From TinkerTry:

I heard back from Intel with a definitive response on the whole question about Power Loss Protection.

As an enterprise part, the Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X offers multiple data protection features that the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P does not, including DIF data integrity checking, circuit checks on the power loss system and ECRC. The DC P4800X also offers a higher MTBF/AFR rating.

I guess I'll return mine then...

 

[Stux]

No PLP.. From TinkerTry:

I heard back from Intel with a definitive response on the whole question about Power Loss Protection.

As an enterprise part, the Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X offers multiple data protection features that the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P does not, including DIF data integrity checking, circuit checks on the power loss system and ECRC. The DC P4800X also offers a higher MTBF/AFR rating.

I guess I'll return mine then...

Ummm. That explains it does have PLP, but not “Enhanced” PLP

First I’ve seen intel explain exactly what is Enhanced about Enhanced PLP :)

 

[Sisyphe]

You are right... Do you think it will work for SLOG or should I get a P3700 which offers "enhanced PLP"?

 

[Stux]

You are right... Do you think it will work for SLOG or should I get a P3700 which offers "enhanced PLP"?

It depends on your level of paranoia. I think it'd be fine, unless your paranoia requires mirrored SLOGs to absolve.

 

[Eric Schrauth]

Do we have any idea of how many of these are being used for SLOG and if they have been tested for this purpose?

 

[joeschmuck]

Picked one up from one of the the guys winning it at CitizenCon who only wanted the Sabre;)

It's good to know people in the right place and right time.