The Intel Optane SSD 900P 280GB Review
by Billy Tallis on October 27, 2017 9:30 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Intel Optane SSD 900P completes the Heavy test with a higher average data rate than any flash-based SSD. Curiously, it performs even better after being filled than it does right after a low-level format. Even the best flash-based SSDs lose a bit of performance when operating with minimal spare area. The Optane SSD by contrast seems to require an extra initialization phase after the format to reach full performance.
As with The Destroyer, the Optane SSD sets records for both average and 99th percentile latency on the Heavy test. The margin for the 99th percentile latency is more significant, with about a 43% improvement over the previous record.
The average write latency of the Optane SSD 900P on the Heavy test comes in as a close second place, while the average read latency sets a new record that is less than half the previous best score.
The Optane SSD's new record for 99th percentile read latency on the Heavy test is 70% lower than the fastest flash-based SSD. The record for 99th percentile write latency is a less impressive 30% improvement over the previous record.
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Meteor2 - Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - link
I always switch to 'read comments as a single page'mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - link
I've used the scroll wheel so much, I had to buy a new mouse... :}Rektide - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Does the P4800X self-destruct/go-read-only after it reaches the advertised 20.5 PBW endurance?That's twice what a Samsung 850 Pro managed in a stress test, but the Pro is a consumer class device. The idea that I'd buy some fancy enterprise drive that would stop operation the second it's endurance rating is over makes me fume.
mkozakewich - Monday, October 30, 2017 - link
From what I've heard, they never stop. At that point, they'll be out of warranty, but they'll continue to work at poorer and poorer performance levels.FwFred - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
I see the comments are 50/50 impressed vs not impressed by this review. I also see that ddriver is 50% of the comments 😂Notmyusualid - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
@FwFredIndeed. I thought the drive was amazing. I guess ddriver read some other article.
todd.nonja - Monday, October 30, 2017 - link
I needed a good laugh after wading through the muck that ddriver has been spewing. Thanks for that!mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - link
Definite lol marker point. :Diwod - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
The price is much cheaper then I thought!. For what it is capable of I think this is actually cheap. This is a first gen ( third ? ) product. So i expect there should still be lots of headroom for improvement. But i still struggle to find the use of it in normal day to day computing.While latency is extremely important, you dont want your system to Jank or halt, but newer SSD is nearly avoided the problem. And as NAND gets cheaper ( Which isn't happening.... ) and better controller, I would call this problem solved.
SSD continues to uses less power, something that is important in Laptop market. And for 99% of our workload we are no longer limited by I/O. As shown in the benchmark with very little performance improvement, why should i get a Optane is an question that needs better answer from Intel.
What i think will be interesting, is the use of Optane SSD on Database server, with those kind of latency, Random Read Write, and Endurance, it think this is going to be a gigantic leap forward.
DanNeely - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Yup. I was expecting it to be several times more expensive. Still more than I'd be willing to spend if building a new system but only; only because I don't think I could live with only half a TB for long before running low on space, and I don't want to do the multiple drives thing again. (I currently have about 400GB used on a 1 TB SSD). 2nd/3rd gen in 2-4 years when I build my new system I could see dropping $500ish for a ~2TB model if it exists then.