Intel Optane is DEAD. Long Live Intel Optane! Buy them cheap right now...

Intel Optane may be dead, but it's still useful. Wendell shows us the huge difference it makes when used as part of your ZFS setup!

Cheap Optane here:

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[LevelTechs]

If this is "backordered" on newegg, your order will be filled, order anyway. its fine :D
I was going to release this when they restocked but forgot till after it was live. oops!

[pyroromancer]

intel heavily hindered Optame's growth among personal consumers with their proprietary key requirements to unlock optane for raid use. That was both expensive and not sold for individual use.

[abavariannormiepleb]

Note: The green PCIe x8-to-2xU.2 bifurcation adapter Wendell has been using is likely the same design as the Delock 90091 that is also rated for PCIe Gen4. Also available as a PCIe x16-to-4xU.2 variant with the model name 90092.

[Owenzzz]

Such a shame that Intel canceled Optane. Feels like PCIe gen5 and CXL is what Optane PMEM needs to be fully utilized.

[MoireFly]

I've used an optane for dev git usage for years now, and i recently updated my workstation. However, in plain normal daily use it's still twice as fast as some of the fastest modern ssds. RIP, optane, you will be missed...

[TadanoHitohito]

I remember when Optane was first becoming a thing. A lot of cheap laptops would use it to store the paging file instead of adding more RAM lol.

[BlueTJLP]

I just snagged a P1600X 118 GB for about 80 bucks from Amazon. The very last one I could purchase here in Germany and that's only because it's shipped from the US. I think I'm gonna make it a boot drive!

[namyun]

I use the 16 and 32 gb optane as boot drives for NAS and firewall devices instead of USB devices. They work nicely and haven't had any problems yet unlike my USB boot drives.

[dangingerich]

I've liked the Optane technology, but it's just too darned expensive. I have a 16GB drive that I use for the temp folder on my main machine. It does speed up installations quite a bit, and takes a small load off my main drive.

[Yandarval]

Wendell. This is sadly one of the few times when you have to put US only in the title. Newegg UK, ships its Optane gear from the US. So shipping costs are untenable. Shipping would add 60% to the cost of the 58GB version ($82 all told). That's not far off the base price of the 118GB version. Useful info as always, Wendell.

[BandanazX]

The price of Optane is still nuts. Often times, RAM is cheaper. Will ZFS just use RAM if it's available to cache that metadata?

[jackwhite]

I would have liked to see a comparison of the directory scan time against conventional flash storage as well.

[DocNo]

Optane makes an awesome L2 cache when using something like Primocache. Time to stock up I guess!

[Ghostdance]

PrimoCache is very good when using Optane as the "L2" cache. I have 4x1TB NVME (Intel 670p) that have 512GB of Intel Persistent Memory (1st gen) in front of them and 32GB of DDR4 ECC 2666 in front of that. The whole setup gets about 18GB/sec in Crystal Disk Mark for the Seq 1M Q8T1, but 680MB/sec in RND4K Q1T1. Latency is around 5 microseconds. I can't really recommend the Intel 670p, but I wanted a full-Intel stack to avoid issues with VROC (it's RAID0, just for games so who cares if it goes up in smoke). It's a shame that prices on Optane were so high and that now it's all being tossed out like this, I would have liked to see an affordably priced solution like the H20 but maybe using 2+TB of NAND and, well, a meaningful amount of Optane for gaming-like workloads (or other desktop-class use). If this had come as a PCIe x16 card it wouldn't have been a big deal, but it probably would have worked better than having to rig up something like I have. Also, the Solidigm tool that replaced the original Intel one for the NVME stuff is slow and clunky. It's such a shame it all went the way it did, but oh well.

[callowaysutton]

Optane seems like it'd be super useful on the dedupe tables where very very low latency and small reads/writes are necessary!

[dmdx]

Yep. Rocking 2x Optane 280GB 900p’s. The 900p is (IMHO) at the sweet spot of affordability and performance. They’re getting a little harder to find as stocks deplete but I ended up getting new old stock from a seller in China to complete my mirrored setup.

[rootbeer]

Thanks for the tip. I think I'll put my page (swap) file on one of these. I'm satisfied with my ZFS performance because I don't have much going on with it, like it's not a factor when I want to watch a movie or store my disk image backups.

[primalfear]

Those 16Gb and 32Gb Optane devices, make for great boot devices, in places where you would sometimes us a flash drive...
I use as boot devices for truenas and unraid.... works super well, more reliable and faster than flash drives... those at the code of an M.2 slot...

[TheBauwssss]

Just the thumbnail alone grants this video infinite amounts of absolutely stellar meme worthiness. Oh and this means that the video is also entitled to an _absolutely_ *INSTANT* like from me, as well! (and I haven't even begun watching the video in the first place... oh man.)

What you've done with all this power is... is... *MEMEWORTHY!* You absolute *legend!* ! I mean like, if it were up to me then I say that you've hit an absolute _f-ing_ home run with this one, Wendel!! Chapeau!

[kurousagi]

Lmao. I was just ordering rn when it suddenly said it was completely out-of-stock (no more back order). Was pretty bummed out until I refreshed the page again.. It changed into “In Stock”.