The Intel Optane SSD 800p (58GB & 118GB) Review: Almost The Right Size
by Billy Tallis on March 8, 2018 5:15 PM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test. These AnandTech Storage Bench (ATSB) tests do not involve running the actual applications that generated the workloads, so the scores are relatively insensitive to changes in CPU performance and RAM from our new testbed, but the jump to a newer version of Windows and the newer storage drivers can have an impact.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, the average latency of the I/O operations, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The average data rates from the Intel Optane SSD 800p on The Destroyer are comparable to some of the faster flash-based SSDs we've tested, but the 800p isn't as fast as the Samsung 960 PRO. Intel's VROC clearly doesn't help performance on this kind of test, and instead it just adds overhead.
The average and 99th percentile latency scores of the Optane SSD 800p on The Destroyer are good, but don't beat the best flash-based SSDs and are far higher than the Optane 900p. Intel VROC seems to improve latency some even though it was detrimental to the average data rate.
The average read latency of the 800p is more than twice as high as that of the 900p, and is higher than the Samsung 960 PRO. VROC RAID-0 adds a few more microseconds of read latency. The average write latency of the 800p is far worse than the 900p or high-end flash based SSDs, but VROC greatly improves the write latencies and the four-drive RAID-0 is comparable to the Optane SSD 900p.
Intel's VROC helps significantly with the 99th percentile read and write latencies, taking the 800p from not quite high-end to beating a single 900p.
The energy usage of the Optane SSD 800p over the course of The Destroyer is far lower than that of any flash-based SSD. The 800p completes the test fairly quickly, and unlike the 900p it keeps power consumption reasonably low throughout the test. The low-end flash based SSDs can take more than twice as long to complete the test while drawing more power than the 800p.
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AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, March 14, 2018 - link
No. My understanding is that most load times are CPU bound, and there's a negligible difference from most 500MB/s SATA III drives vs the Samsung 950/960 vs Optane. That makes it completely pointless for almost all users.emvonline - Friday, March 16, 2018 - link
so any reasonable calculation says chip can be cycled 7-10k times (mlc nand is specd at 10k). And total tbw is less than most of the competion 960 pro ssds. is this true? so its around enterprise mlc in endurance???mkozakewich - Sunday, March 18, 2018 - link
Why is everyone so bad at figuring out when to use things? This would be great in any environment where you're prioritizing low-queue-depth transfers. Obviously it's not going to replace your computer's SSD.MDD1963 - Friday, March 23, 2018 - link
When these things cost less than and/or exceed the performance of the 960 EVO, perhaps then they will begin to sell....DocNo - Thursday, April 12, 2018 - link
Use this as L2 cache with PrimoCache and prepared to be amazed. I have the 64GB Optane paired with Primocache and the performance difference is notable - even with my primary drive being a Samsung M2 Pro series SSD drive. If I wasn't so happy with my current setup I'd be all over this new drive as an L2 cache. And unlike Intel's caching software for Optane, Primocache is trivial to install with no special requirements for BIOS or partitioning.http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/ind...
Primocache is also the most inexpensive way I have found to accelerate Windows server too. I'm a huge fan!
Chongsboy - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
Not sure where you guys work, or what you have against optane is, but under server conditions, a new mb design, would be wonderful for servers, ie: cloud servers. Where workers are a fricken arm and a leg, hardware costs is not that much of an issue, especially special discounts intel will give to big players. I feel that most ppl here commenting negatively dont actually run real life servers, dealing with thousands, maybe not even hundred requests per minute. Reliability amd speed trumps prices for these servers as if you dont realize aws and all cloud providers are ripping people off, and thats why these c rooked companies are earning billions. Anyways, i deal with these cloud systems in my work. I for one expect all large companies to mov to optane, because it's just that fast, and reliable: ie facebook, aws, azure, what not. Dunno why people are going nuts... we got intel haters galore here...