Intel Optane as small SSD?

[Tony habergham]

Hello, and I hope a question from a noob is Ok here?

I'm just in the process of re-jigging my FM2+ PC to a Ryzen 5.

One of the roles of my machine is processing BOINC tasks, for which I've been using a cheap 30GB Sata 2 SSD. Having 3 M.2 slots available on the new machine, I was thinking of using one of those for a cheap, small M.2 PCIe drive for this instead.

Looking around, the small Intel optane sticks would seem to be ideal - fast, persistent storage; 16GB sticks available for under £10, and claims that repeated read-write cycles dont wear it as much as a standard SSD.

However, I keep coming up with references like this, online: 'Intel Optane memory is only compatible with certain motherboards, laptops or desktops that have 7th Generation processors or newer and Windows operating system'. Cant see why though - can anyone confirm it can be used on an AMD system in a normal M.2 slot, as a small SSD?

 

[Tony habergham]

Thanks all. I cant see why they wouldn't be standard M.2 drives - I think all the warning is from when PCIe was far less common. And intel processor/software would be required to be able use them as cache for a larger drive.

Thought it was worth a punt, so got one on order for £8. I'll update if it works, when it eventually gets here.

 

[Tony habergham]

Update - Works fine as a stand-alone SSD. However, it cost me more like £12 in the end.

Also, from reading around, there is software available for Ryzen CPUs that let you set a fast PCIe SSD as cache for a larger, slower, drive; in the same way optane was originally meant to be used that's built-in to some Intel boards. Both have to be directly connected to motherboard controllers though.