The Intel Optane SSD 900P 280GB Review
by Billy Tallis on October 27, 2017 9:30 AM 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 Intel Optane SSD 900P sets a new record for average data rate on The Destroyer, beating the Samsung 960 PRO 2TB's score by about 10%, and beating the more similarly-priced 512GB 960 PRO by about 23%.
The average latency of the Optane SSD 900P on The Destroyer is a modest improvement over the previous record. The 99th percentile latency is a more significant 60% reduction over the previous record, putting the Optane SSD more clearly in a separate performance consistency class from high-end flash-based SSDs.
The average read latency of the Optane SSD 900P on The Destroyer is less than half that of any flash-based SSD, but the average write latency is a bit slower than the fastest flash-based SSDs.
Even though the Optane SSD didn't set a record for average write latency on the Destroyer, its 99th percentile write latency is about half the previous record. The 99th percentile read latency beats the previous record by more than 60%.
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ddriver - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
I'd reserve judgement in regard with endurance until I see how many TBs written before it cr@ps out.Laptops - that activates my hilarity unit. It can only shine in enterprise workloads, laptops are inherently underpowered and targeted at completely different workloads.
We need to get it into smart watches, now that will be a game changer. Imagine the possibilities ;)
BrokenCrayons - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
"Laptops - that activates my hilarity unit. It can only shine in enterprise workloads, laptops are inherently underpowered and targeted at completely different workloads."The millions of customers that purchase mobile workstations find your misunderstand laughable.
ddriver - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
I highly doubt mobile workstations sell in the millions. They are a rather niche market.And I know that mobile workstations are used for very different workloads from the enterprise. Clearly, you lack insights into "workstation" and "enterprise" ;)
BrokenCrayons - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
If, by "enterprise" you're trying to imply server workloads, then sure, I'd agree that mobile workstations fill a different computing role in the workplace. However, there's nothing preventing a storage-intensive workload from ending up on any sort of laptop, even a consumer-oriented system.Why intentionally close the door to storage technologies? Is it a brand loyalty hangup? Do you really care that much about what company logo is on a product? Its sort of an inferior and defective mental state you've got there over something as meaningless as what company developed a particular product. Or are you close-minded over the idea that the performance claims weren't met? That's almost as irrational as brand loyalty (or dis-loyalty in your case...which is equally silly, by the way). Decrying a reasonably priced product that performs well because it didn't live up to a marketing claim merely means you haven't the capacity to put aside your emotions and see a product for its usage past the crap you get fed by meaningless product announcements. That's just as dumb as falling prey to marketing to begin with. Either way, someone with the ability to control their own emotions and think rationally wouldn't be in the situation you're in right now.
ddriver - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
There is no such thing as a "server workstation". There is this thing called "server", and this thing called "workstation". There is some very minimal possible overlap in specs, but the two are used for completely different purposes.Hypetane's advantage is mostly due to the controller rather than the storage medium. And that performance obviously comes at a high power cost. Which is why I am not seeing this make its way into laptops, where it will offer next to no real world performance benefits while being a significant power drain.
You love wasting money to have worse battery life or something?
Emotions? U crazy? This is electronics, it's just stuff, inanimate matter. Who would see it in an emotional context, aside from braindead fanboys?
One of the many things I do is also to play the guitar. People are always like "you don't love your guitars enough" - coming from people who collect guitars for decoration and barely even play and naturally suck at it. To which I reply - "to me the guitar is not a fashion accessory, it is an instrument, I cannot love it any more than I can love a hammer or a wrench or an electric drill".
It is the same for hardware. Some may buy it for bragging rights or self esteem. I buy what I can afford as long as it can serve the purpose I buy it for. Surely I didn't like buying intel CPUs the last 10 years, but when AMD's got garbage, there is nothing I can do about it.
What drives my criticism of intel is their shitty act. They pretend as if they are the drive of innovation, but they have actually held technology a hostage through their monopoly, and impeded competition and progress tremendously, causing irreparable damage to humanity. You don't have the capacity to understand how much better things could have been had progress not been hostage of the greedy and corrupt but I do. And they keep on doing it even after being caught red-handed. As they say, "a leopard cannot change its spots".
The real problem however is "people" like you being reduced so low, not only do you NOT have a problem with the degradation and exploitation of your own species, you go forth to applaud it. Honestly, what does intel have to do to get criticism from you? Run over your dog? Burn your house down? Chop your hands off?
It is your fault that intel's act is so shitty. People like you, who let it slide and even applaud it. It is your fault amd wasn't competitive for a decade. It is your fault that they ask 10000 dollars for a piece of silicone that costs 50 dollars to make. AT servers will run out of storage space before I list all the shit "people" with your mindset and responsible for.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Yup, easily manipulated.lmcd - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
Please help me understand how GloFo was ever going to catch up enough for AMD to realistically have competed? They're only finally competing with the slowdown post-Moore's Law. Blame whatever you want but Intel's process advantage brought them massive performance advantages and design advantages. Add in the importance of yields -- as core count increases, yield becomes massively more important. AMD never was going to compete with Intel until the barrier to improvement became physics itself, and not merely our tools of manipulation.utmode - Saturday, October 28, 2017 - link
How come Moore's Law is law when it is not a law anymore or never been. ItAndrewJacksonZA - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
"Intel has almost taken all the fun out of testing a SSD.":-)
jjj - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link
The drive has very high power consumption and the power meter fails? That's very very suspicious and you should have delayed the review.To make it worse, the results will be published only in bench and the review not updated?
I can't trust you anymore, ever.