Optane "memory" worth it?

[BongoHunter]

I am thinking to buy the pcie x4 add in card version now, if I do get the 900p

I recently got a 900p for my server - the performance is phenomenal. I wouldn't be looking to do the cache setup, I would install things that matter in terms of disk IO on one drive, and things that don't on whatever other drives you have. If you have a decent budget then the 480gb 900p might be worth a look - or its enterprise siblings like the P4800X.

What is the total storage you require for apps and data?

 

[Phil2008]

I recently got a 900p for my server - the performance is phenomenal. I wouldn't be looking to do the cache setup, I would install things that matter in terms of disk IO on one drive, and things that don't on whatever other drives you have. If you have a decent budget then the 480gb 900p might be worth a look - or its enterprise siblings like the P4800X.

What is the total storage you require for apps and data?

Thats the way the 900p should be used, as a drive.. Well I have bought a "4tb wd gold hdd" to replace my aging "640gb wd black hdd" and was going to upgrade my 32gb optane with a larger optane to link to the new hard drive? But spending "£240+ on a 280gb 900p" or "£500+ on a 480gb 900p" to be used as a normal drive is daft. I am probably being daft considering buying the optane 900p to use it as cache for my hdd.

But using a 900p drive as just a drive, can you honestly say you notice the difference between that and a average ssd without benchmarking them. Because I use a sammy ssd as a boot drive and most of my apps open instantly, the only things that dont open instantly is things that need cpu power while they load.

 

[BongoHunter]

But using a 900p drive as just a drive, can you honestly say you notice the difference between that and a average ssd without benchmarking them?

For gaming / general usage the 900p and co. are not worth it over the Samsung or Corsair NVME drives, but for what I'm using it for it makes a massive difference for things like databases and other sustained write uses - performance for the main app I'm using (ElasticSearch) I get nearly double the performance, and for read intensive workloads in the same app I was able to address 50% more data for the same amount of RAM usage with no appreciable difference in perf.

900p is probably overkill unless your throwing an enterprise type workload at it - a regular NVME like the 970 Evo Plus is an excellent performer, and so is the Corsair MP510 - and they are cheap too

 

[JasonM]

Just picking up on the people that say don't use caching, and just get a SSD and store everything on it.

What most are missing is that if you install some software, often most of those files are not accessed. I don't have any stats but I expect 70% of Windows files are never normally accessed by people, things like help sections, FTP, telnet features. And it's not just apps, think about documents or personal photos that are stored but hardly ever accessed. So if you get say a 2TB SSD a lot of fast storage is wasted.

The future is 2 tiers of storage, so the first could be either HDD or slower SSD, then the second is the faster NAND caching.

It's the same principle as CPU caching, instead of DDR4 we could have the entire memory out of CPU cache but the cost would be astronomic and unnecessary.

So this is why Optane exists, Intel are trying to create a caching tier between RAM and the main storage, it's exactly the same thinking as on the 80386 and 80486 CPU's where they first introduced CPU cache.

 

[Phil2008]

For gaming / general usage the 900p and co. are not worth it over the Samsung or Corsair NVME drives, but for what I'm using it for it makes a massive difference for things like databases and other sustained write uses - performance for the main app I'm using (ElasticSearch) I get nearly double the performance, and for read intensive workloads in the same app I was able to address 50% more data for the same amount of RAM usage with no appreciable difference in perf.

900p is probably overkill unless your throwing an enterprise type workload at it - a regular NVME like the 970 Evo Plus is an excellent performer, and so is the Corsair MP510 - and they are cheap too

I apologize if I was a bit straight to the point in my last post.. For my use, using the optane as a regular drive is a bit pointless, as I dont use it as a works pc in anyway, just for media streaming around the house, gaming, browsing the net and generally messing about.. But using the optane as cache for my hard drive, I can see that being usefull.

 

[Phil2008]

I have just managed to get a 480gb optane 900p pciex4 card for £250,, so the same price as the 280gb version but its not new. I am still going to get it running as cache for my harddrive and hopefully the bios and the intel optane software will detect it so I can use it as cache, without faffing around with different software..... Fingers and toes crossed.

 

[Armageus]

What most are missing is that if you install some software, often most of those files are not accessed. I don't have any stats but I expect 70% of Windows files are never normally accessed by people, things like help sections, FTP, telnet features.

Windows is <30GB it's a pretty poor example. The majority of things that people want fast access to are used entirely - e.g. Games don't randomly install GB's of data to not be used.

And it's not just apps, think about documents or personal photos that are stored but hardly ever accessed. So if you get say a 2TB SSD a lot of fast storage is wasted.

Which is why you don't bother putting documents or photos on an SSD - they are perfectly fine on a hard drive, same as almost any form of media (e.g. music or video library).


SSDs are getting cheaper and cheaper - for a lot of "normal" users, SSD capacities are already large enough at affordable prices. The only real reasons to still have huge amounts of disk space at home, are for media libraries (which arguably are better suited to a NAS), and huge game libraries (in which case there comes a point as to how many games do you need installed and on fast storage, vs how many you actually play)

 

[Phil2008]

Received my 4tb WD Gold hdd from the bay today that I paid £130 for instead of £160-£170. Haven't received the optane 900p yet tho, that should be here tomorrow.

 

[Phil2008]

Well I received the 480gb optane 900p drive today and its worked, the intel optane software detected it fine, and I have linked it up to my 640gb hard drive (cant have my 4tb drive yet as its for my birthday)

The 480gb optane took about a hour todo its thing and link up with the hard drive,, but oddly I ran "dirt rally" and it loaded up and the stage super fast, first time. The benchies are not as fast as the other guy's 900p drive, but still its much faster then my 32gb optane that I was using. I guess it might get faster over time though, but my games are loading nice and quick anyhow.

I just wanted to show what actual SSD caching does to a HDD. The following is run from my computer just now.

LEFT is a Western Digital 2TB Gold drive
RIGHT is the same Western Digital 2TB Gold drive + SSD caching.

I'm using a reclaimed 6 year old Samsung PRO 840 as the caching SSD that also contains my Page File and HDD index locations.

4K Q32 is showing an almost 600% increase in read speeds. Where as 4k is showing over a 2000% increase in read speeds. Large files show no change.

I like this setup as I have 2 x 2TB + 2 x 1.5TB HDD's and the caching is covering all my HDD space. My computer is a i7 8700 with 32GB of RAM and despite having a 2TB Gold HDD as it's C drive it honestly does not feel slow.

You need the proper software and one of the optane drives for super fast speeds. Plus a optane ready motherboard helps too.

 

[chrcoluk]

Flash prices have dropped a lot recently. 2TB drives for £200 make mechanical drives days look short.

4tb spindle can be had for circa £100, so still almost 400% price per gig.

For accessing media, 90% of games, spindle is still adequate.

 

[chrcoluk]

Received my 4tb WD Gold hdd from the bay today that I paid £130 for instead of £160-£170. Haven't received the optane 900p yet tho, that should be here tomorrow.

nice price, but what has put me off these more durable spindles is they are all 7200rpm, now days 5400rpm is plenty fast, so I see 7200rpm as unneeded noise. I would love a enterprise class 5400rpm drive.

 

[Phil2008]

nice price, but what has put me off these more durable spindles is they are all 7200rpm, now days 5400rpm is plenty fast, so I see 7200rpm as unneeded noise. I would love a enterprise class 5400rpm drive.

I still like a nice 7200rpm drive for my games, but yeah I have noticed there isnt as meny 5400rpm drives about now and using my pc as a media server I always try to buy the low powered 5400rpm drives for my media stuff.

Now I have this optane drive as cache for my games/storage drive, all my hard drives I buy in future for my games/storage will be nice and fast... The only thing I regret is not having a m.2 version of the optane as its using my pciex 4 slot and that could have come in handy for other stuff... But it was too much of a bargin to turn down.

 

[JasonM]

nice price, but what has put me off these more durable spindles is they are all 7200rpm, now days 5400rpm is plenty fast, so I see 7200rpm as unneeded noise. I would love a enterprise class 5400rpm drive.

I have two 2TB WD Gold drives. They are some of the quietest drives I've ever owned, not only the background spin, but also the arm movement.

They are quieter then some old Samsung Eco Green 1.5TB 5400rpm drives also in same case.

 

[Phil2008]

WD had stopped making the WD gold drives just before xmas and thats the main reason that I bought my 4tb WD gold drive from the bay...... Im gutted that the WD green drives are not being made anymore also, as I always used these drives for my media, looks like I'll have to buy the WD red drives from now on

 

[JasonM]

WD had stopped making the WD gold drives just before xmas

Don't panic Captain Mainwaring!

The WD Ultrastars are hardware identical to the WD Gold's, WD only changed the name for marketing purpose.

And the WD Blue 5400rpm replaced the WD Green.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

What is the best free cache software. I have a friend and found out last night he is still rocking a 2tb WD Green. I have a 128gb ssd sitting unuaed so he can have it. But instead of doing a fresh install I said let's try caching

 

[EsaT]

What is the best free cache software. I have a friend and found out last night he is still rocking a 2tb WD Green. I have a 128gb ssd sitting unuaed so he can have it. But instead of doing a fresh install I said let's try caching

If he has Intel PC then Intel's Smart Response Technology should be usable.
Though it need switching chipset SATA controller to RAID mode.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

WD had stopped making the WD gold drives just before xmas and thats the main reason that I bought my 4tb WD gold drive from the bay...... Im gutted that the WD green drives are not being made anymore also, as I always used these drives for my media, looks like I'll have to buy the WD red drives from now on

they have all just been re-branded, they had two many of the same drive type.
now its just blue, black and red would be the main types, with purple and ultra star for specific uses

https://www.wd.com/en-gb/products/internal-storage.html

 

[JasonM]

they have all just been re-branded, they had two many of the same drive type.
now its just blue, black and red would be the main types, with purple and ultra star for specific uses

https://www.wd.com/en-gb/products/internal-storage.html

Regarding the renaming of Gold to Ultrastar, it's due to HGST acquisition by WD 9 years ago. The Ultrastar brand is more well known so they just renamed Gold drives to Ultrastar, however for many years Ultrastar's and Gold's were hardware identical.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Regarding the renaming of Gold to Ultrastar, it's due to HGST acquisition by WD 9 years ago. The Ultrastar brand is more well known so they just renamed Gold drives to Ultrastar, however for many years Ultrastar's and Gold's were hardware identical.

that's what i said, different name for the same drives so they have just re-branded all drivers to make it simpler.

like the green and gold have gone