The Intel Optane Memory M10 (64GB) Review: Optane Caching Refreshed
by Billy Tallis on May 15, 2018 10:45 AM EST- Posted in
- SSDs
- Storage
- Intel
- PCIe SSD
- SSD Caching
- M.2
- NVMe
- Optane
- Optane Memory
Random 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 M.2 Optane modules offer the fastest burst random read speeds when tested as standalone drives, but Intel's caching system imposes substantial overhead. Even with that overhead, the random read performance is far above any solution that doesn't involve 3D XPoint memory. As in past reviews, we find that the Optane Memory/Optane SSD 800P has a slight advantage here over the top of the line Optane SSD 900P.
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.
The sustained random read test covers a larger span of the drive, and the 32GB and 64GB modules are not large enough to cache the entire dataset plus the necessary cache management metadata, leaving them with performance close to that of the the hard drive. The 118GB cache is sufficient to contain the full data set for this test, and its performance is below that of the Optane drives tested as standalone drives, but still out of reach of flash-based storage.
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The random read performance scaling of the Optane Memory and 800P drives is rather uneven at higher queue depths, but they do still reach very high throughput. The 118GB cache configuration doesn't scale to higher queue depths as well as the standalone SSD configuration, and the 900P hits a wall at a far lower performance level than it should based on our Linux benchmarking.
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.
On the burst random write test, the larger two caching configurations perform far above what any standalone drive delivers under Windows. The 32GB Optane Memory module also scores better when used as a cache than as a standalone SSD. It is possible that Intel's caching software is also using a RAM cache and is lying to the benchmark software about whether the writes have actually made it onto non-volatile storage. However, the performance here is not actually beyond what NVMe SSDs deliver when we test them under Linux, so it's somewhat possible that there are simply some much-needed fast paths in Intel's drivers.
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.
The sustained random write test covers more data than can be cached on the 64GB Optane Memory M10, so it and the 32GB cache module fall far behind mainstream SATA SSDs. The standalone Optane SSDs continue to offer great performance, and the 118GB Optane SSD 800P as a cache device tops the chart.
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For the one configuration with a cache large enough to handle this test, performance scales up much sooner than in the standalone SSD configuration: QD2 gives almost the full random write speed. When the cache is too small, increasing queue depth just makes performance worse.
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TrackSmart - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
People seem to be talking around each other in these threads, without actually reading the substance of each person's reply.Dr. Swag didn't mention ONLY using a 500GB SSD. Just the opposite. He/she was suggesting that you could use a 500GB SSD for both a boot drive AND a 64GB cache drive. So you end up with ~440GB of normal SSD space (enough for most programs) AND a ~60GB cache drive to speed up your HDD accesses. All for the same price as adding a 64GB optane drive.
Addressing Dr. Swag's actual comment: I partially agree. One downside to the arrangement you suggested is that most affordable SSDs have lower write endurance than cache drives. They are also likely to be slower than an optane drive (but still fast compared to HDDs). And if your SSD boot/cache all-in-one drive dies, you might lose data on both the SSD and the HDD.
Regarding WithoutWeakness: Your comment makes sense if you are accessing the same subset of data over-and-over again. But if you are accessing a block of data ONCE to run an analysis and then moving onto a new block of data, then you will experience HDD speeds. Same goes for the first access to the data in cases where you will be using it multiple times. Slow the first time, faster in future times. So the downsides of a small cache will remain in a number of scenarios.
I personally think that Intel missed the boat with Optane. These solutions would have been a lot more convincing when SSD storage was a lot more expensive (i.e. 5+ years ago) and before other caching options existed for making use of 'normal' SSDs.
ಬುಲ್ವಿಂಕಲ್ ಜೆ ಮೂಸ್ - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
Power loss protection ?From what I know so far, the MX500 (500GB) cache contains unique data that has not yet been written to normal nand and Crucial does not recommend using an SLC cache unless you have battery backup protection
An Optane cache drive is a "copy" of data already on the hard drive (or SSD) and I don't see a problem with power loss resulting in data loss once you clear the cache
SkipPpe - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link
Something like an Intel 3510 would be a better drive to use for this.ಬುಲ್ವಿಂಕಲ್ ಜೆ ಮೂಸ್ - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
DOH......Nevermind!
sharath.naik - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
I was wondering if the lifespan of these are no better than SSD. wont this burn out much faster than the drives lifespan if used as a cache for it?MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
Optane drives are more durable than the average SSDCheapSushi - Wednesday, May 16, 2018 - link
Even more so than MLC NAND, which seems to be getting harder and harder to find (aside from Samsung's PRO line).Drumsticks - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
Is anybody else interested in the performance of the 800p as a cache drive? The difference between an Optane SSD 800p and a 1TB HDD versus a 1TB SATA drive nowadays is less than $15, so it's pretty comparable for effectively the same capacity of storage. On the other hand, in the 25 or so graphs presented in this review, the 118GB caching solution outperforms a SATA drive, sometimes handily, in 24 of them. The 25th is power consumption, and one of them has a single loss in run 1 of the latency measurement for the heavy test.Hell, sometimes that solution outperforms the 900p. Why would you pick a comparably priced 1TB SATA SSD over something like that? If you need less storage, a 500GB will perform even worse than a 1TB, and a 250GB would be even worse still. Going down in capacity on the Optane drive would still probably keep you in the range of the SATA drive, while leaving you with double or quadruple the capacity.
Giroro - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
"58GB 800P is functionally identical to the 64GB M10 and both have the exact same usable capacity of 58,977,157,120 bytes."Hold on, either something is wrong or that is straight-up false advertisement, a new low that is far beyond how storage manufacturers usually inflate their capacity specs. Don't just breeze past the part where Intel may be illegally marketing this thing. As far as I know Optane doesn't use over-provisioning, and it definitely isn't the normal GiB/GB conversion issue or the typical "formatting" excuse that doesn't actually apply to solid state media, so what gives?
It has to be a mistake, right?
The_Assimilator - Wednesday, May 16, 2018 - link
> it definitely isn't the normal GiB/GB conversion issueActually, it is.