The Intel Optane SSD 900P 280GB Review
by Billy Tallis on October 27, 2017 9:30 AM ESTRandom Read Performance
Our first test of random read performance uses very short bursts of operations issued one at a time with no queuing. The drives are given enough idle time between bursts to yield an overall duty cycle of 20%, so thermal throttling is impossible. Each burst consists of a total of 32MB of 4kB random reads, from a 16GB span of the disk. The total data read is 1GB.
The Optane SSD 900P doesn't break the record for QD1 random reads, but only because we've also tested the 32GB Optane Memory M.2, which is about two microseconds faster on average for each 4kB read. The Optane SSD 900P is still about 7 times faster than any flash-based SSD.
Our sustained random read performance is similar to the random read test from our 2015 test suite: queue depths from 1 to 32 are tested, and the average performance and power efficiency across QD1, QD2 and QD4 are reported as the primary scores. Each queue depth is tested for one minute or 32GB of data transferred, whichever is shorter. After each queue depth is tested, the drive is given up to one minute to cool off so that the higher queue depths are unlikely to be affected by accumulated heat build-up. The individual read operations are again 4kB, and cover a 64GB span of the drive.
When longer transfers and higher queue depths come into play, the Optane SSD 900P passes the Optane Memory M.2 and remains more than 6 times faster for random reads than any flash-based SSD.
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Both Optane devices more or less level off at queue depths of 8 or higher. The Optane SSD 900P saturates at about 1800 MB/s while the Optane Memory tops out around 1300 MB/s. The Samsung 960 PRO 2TB hasn't caught up by QD32, and doesn't surpass the QD1 random read performance of the Optane SSD until the Samsung reaches a queue depth of about 8.
Random Write Performance
Our test of random write burst performance is structured similarly to the random read burst test, but each burst is only 4MB and the total test length is 128MB. The 4kB random write operations are distributed over a 16GB span of the drive, and the operations are issued one at a time with no queuing.
The burst random write performance of the Optane SSD 900P is slightly higher than the Intel SSD 750 1.2TB, and about 14% faster than Samsung's fastest.
As with the sustained random read test, our sustained 4kB random write test runs for up to one minute or 32GB per queue depth, covering a 64GB span of the drive and giving the drive up to 1 minute of idle time between queue depths to allow for write caches to be flushed and for the drive to cool down.
With higher queue depths in play, the Optane SSD 900P scales up faster than the Intel SSD 750 1.2TB, leaving the Optane SSD with a 7-10% lead over the Samsung 960s and Intel 750.
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Samsung's 960 PROs and the larger 960 EVO all trail slightly behind the Optane SSD's random write performance for queue depths 1 to 4, then the Samsung drives level off and leave the Optane SSD with a substantial performance advantage at high queue depths. The Intel 750 is slightly faster at QD1 and QD2, but saturates at an even lower performance level than the Samsung 960s.
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ddriver - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Yeah, and now you will either get crucified for straying from the herd, or you will be labeled a fake account I made to compliment myself :)It is not really worth the trouble you know, I don't care about approval.
lmcd - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
I bet you also are advocating against future upgrades to Anandtech's comment system, with which even a crowd as small as Anandtech's would use to bury your unwanted, pointless, and untruthful comments.Reflex - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Optane is a technology.Today's article is about a product, which happens to use Optane in combination with other technologies.
Intel's statements about Optane were about the capabilities of the technology. And indeed, for those who know much about PCM they were reasonable statements.
Actual products are not guaranteed to maximize the ultimate potential of a given technology, especially in their first revisions. In 1995 when most motherboards were transitioning from a BIOS ROM to a Flash BIOS, a company could have stated that the potential for Flash was 1000x the performance of the older ROM based technologies. And they would have been correct. Even though the earlier Flash devices achieved speeds only of a couple MB/sec.
Flash BIOS chips were a product. Flash, NAND or NOR, are technologies. Those technologies had major potential which has been largely realized over the two decades since that time. Products have gotten better as supporting technologies have improved (such as controllers and bus interfaces) and predicted improvements in Flash were made (die shrinks, power optimization, parallelization, die stacking, etc). That does not make any of the early PR about the technology inaccurate, or even misleading. It was all true and over time it was demonstrated.
Intel stated the potential of Optane. Two years later they have started releasing products based on it. None are yet capable of reaching its stated potential, after all a 1000x performance improvement would exceed the bandwidth of any connected bus, much less the controllers in their current state and likely the current manufacturing technologies. But they launched with what is undoubtedly the fastest storage device on the market by a significant margin, with reliability that is multiples of any competing technology, and a cost that is significantly lower than expected for such a halo product.
That is a very successful launch. And given what they have stated Optane is capable of (all reasonable targets for PCM), I am optimistic about the future.
And I am glad Samsung will have competition again. The market has stagnated both in price and capacity.
looncraz - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
I have a specific workload that can (at peak sustained) can read 3~4GB/s and write out about 1.5~2.0GB/s from storage (at the same time to different drives - some data to/from GPU, some to/from CPU). Optane would actually slow me down quite a bit.The 4KiB block size is simply not an issue that requires solving any more. Software adapted already.
Manch - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Out of 6 pages of comments that idiot rambles on and on for 5 of them. I'm pleading with the UK government to reevaluate and censure the internet usage of their crazies......JTMC.....just shut up.Reflex - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
I miss the days when we had intelligent commentators on articles here.ddriver - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
You mean the days you didn't have them and still had the idyllic, innocent, ignorant garden of tech Eden, where feeling intelligent was as easy as posting a "great review, great product, me want" comment.Funny story, I evidently didn't have a point of reference until recently, when I visited the comment section at wccftech. Now, after having see that, I do also see how you could cultivate the illusion that the AT comment section may appear to be intelligent, if only relative to that random offtopic pic trolling, but I can assure you, there is no intellect in "on-topic sucking up".
You definitely have a problem with factual intelligence, and that problem has to do with realizing it is something that you do not posses. Which makes you cranky. You do have a choice thou, you can remain antagonistic to actual intelligence in order to protect your lack thereof and hold on to the much more easily attainable illusion of it, or you can take steps to acquire intelligence for real, but I warn you, it will change your world forever.
And just to let you know, you can become intelligent without becoming an ass like me. Those are two different traits, not related to each other.
lmcd - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Honestly, if you've got so much experience in the field, you should spend more time in it. You're clearly excessively valuable and should not waste your talents talking to such unintelligent plebian commenters.Reflex - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Yes, obviously prior to your arrival no one writing for or commenting on this site or its articles had any in depth knowledge of technology. Thank goodness you finally arrived to enlighten us all. I have no idea how the technology industry, writers and community even managed to invent the pocket calculator before you arrived.mkozakewich - Monday, October 30, 2017 - link
When you see their names, just scroll past the entire message thread. It'll save you a lot of time and sanity.(I agree, though; it was annoying scrolling through four or five pages!)