The Intel Optane SSD 900P 280GB Review
by Billy Tallis on October 27, 2017 9:30 AM ESTSequential Read Performance
Our first test of sequential read performance uses short bursts of 128MB, issued as 128kB operations with no queuing. The test averages performance across eight bursts for a total of 1GB of data transferred from a drive containing 16GB of data. Between each burst the drive is given enough idle time to keep the overall duty cycle at 20%.
The burst QD1 sequential read performance of the Intel Optane SSD 900P falls in between the Samsung 960 PRO and 960 EVO. Samsung's fastest outperforms the Optane SSD by about 11%.
Our test of sustained sequential reads uses queue depths from 1 to 32, with the performance and power scores computed as the average of QD1, QD2 and QD4. Each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB transferred, from a drive containing 64GB of data.
On the longer test of sequential read performance, the Optane SSD holds on to a commanding lead after the flash-based SSDs mostly slow down relative to their burst performance.
Both Optane devices show a jump in performance from QD1 to QD2, after which their performance holds steady. Samsung's 960s show very minor performance increases with queue depth, and at the highest queue depths the Intel SSD 750 comes closest to catching up to the Optane SSD.
Sequential Write Performance
Our test of sequential write burst performance is structured identically to the sequential read burst performance test save for the direction of the data transfer. Each burst writes 128MB as 128kB operations issued at QD1, for a total of 1GB of data written to a drive containing 16GB of data.
Samsung's 960 PRO and EVO drives all outperform the Intel Optane SSD 900P on the burst sequential write test, by up to 16%.
Our test of sustained sequential writes is structured identically to our sustained sequential read test, save for the direction of the data transfers. Queue depths range from 1 to 32 and each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB, followed by up to one minute of idle time for the drive to cool off and perform garbage collection. The test is confined to a 64GB span of the drive.
On the longer sequential write test, the Optane SSD loses ground to Samsung's three fastest SSDs but everything else slows down even more.
Almost all of the SSDs in this bunch reach their full sequential write speed at QD2, and they are mostly differentiated by their speeds once saturated. A few drives show some unevenness during the later portions of the test, but the Optane SSD has just a minor blip in its favor at the end of the test.
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Lolimaster - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
The past is the past, few years ago, a 20GB HDD cost $200 so?btb - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
Does the Optane 900P have support for hardware based Bitlocker encryption?Currently I have a motherboard with a TPM, and an SSD with Microsoft eDrive/TCG Opal/IEEE 1667 support, and thus support for hardware based(not software) Bitlocker.
Would the Optane work in a similar manner, if I use it as a boot drive?
voicequal - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
Mixed reads & writes are a significant weak spot for SSD performance, where a sequential write workload can degrade a sequential read workload and vice versa. It looks like Optane has completely resolved this (no more bathtub curve). It would be interesting to see a mixed sequential test with QD > 1, so that both read & write requests are in the queue. In theory, throughput could be 2x under 50/50 mixed workloads if Optane is fast enough to saturate the full duplex paths, like the PCIe bus, in both directions.evilpaul666 - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
I ordered a 480GB AIC version from the popular online vendor. I was surprised it was actually available. Seems to be bucking a trend this year.Hopefully, Intel ironed out the bugs and there won't be crashes until multiple firmware updates over the next year.
Anecdotally, I've heard good things about improved UX. I'll find out in a few days. It's replacing an Intel 750 400GB from about two years ago.
Mikewind Dale - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
This is awesome. But what excites me most is using XPoint to replace RAM.I wonder, can we get an approximate simulation of what that world could be like, by making a system with a deliberately minuscule amount of RAM, installing a 32 GB Optane module, and setting the Windows page file to be on that Optane module? I'd be interested to see some benchmarks.
evilpaul666 - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
There was a demo of a system with only 4GB RAM that was supposed to have had good results."Bullwinkle J Moose" - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
Would System Start-up be any faster?---------------------------------------------------
Faster that what? Apples to Bannana's?
A 35 Watt Dualcore Sandy bridge will boot a fresh install of Windows 10 Fall Crapper Edition (Sept 2017) in 5.35 seconds to a Samsung 850 Pro
or, the same computer will boot a fresh install of Windows XP-SP2 in 3 - 4 seconds (it varies every boot)
Then, I've seen people bragging on youtube for booting new 90+ Watt Quadcore machines to Windows 10 on an M.2 drive in 17 seconds
So, wutz your opinion?
How fast is fast ?
cheshirster - Sunday, October 29, 2017 - link
Those prices are FAKE.CaedenV - Sunday, October 29, 2017 - link
Come on Intel! Storage isn't what this tech is made for! This was supposed to have faster throughput and act as a RAM replacement, not SSD replacement! Being able to replace RAM and storage with something that is slightly slower than RAM, but the capacity of a large SSD would have huge benefits. Imagine 'launching' a program and all that needs to be done is to flip a flag from inactive to active and your whole program is up and running. No loading from the HDD/SSD into RAM, just activate a section of memory and update the windows registry keys if needed. Having direct HDD/SSD access to the CPU without needing to load into RAM first. These would be huge advantages. But instead Intel saw that it wasnt going to be good enough for that so they released what they had as a way to cash in and make up for all of the wasted R&D on this tech over the years.Granted; it is not ALL bad. For consumers this would be like burning money. But for business use this is amazing tech. At my work we have a huge document management system with some ~6 million documents in it, and 200+ users running searches on them all the time. On HDD these searches would take just over a minute. We recently moved the search cache to SSDs which dropped the search time down to ~10-20 sec. With Optane we could lower it to near instant search times. Not going to do it any time soon, but there is absolutely a market for this kind of tech in the business IT world. I just don't understand why Intel is marketing it to gamers.
Reflex - Sunday, October 29, 2017 - link
To be fair, the software ecosystem is a decade or more behind the concept of unified memory. Even if this was a capable RAM replacement today, nothing could take advantage of it, and wouldn't be able to for a very long time.