The Intel Optane SSD 900P 280GB Review
by Billy Tallis on October 27, 2017 9:30 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Intel Optane SSD 900P completes the Heavy test with a higher average data rate than any flash-based SSD. Curiously, it performs even better after being filled than it does right after a low-level format. Even the best flash-based SSDs lose a bit of performance when operating with minimal spare area. The Optane SSD by contrast seems to require an extra initialization phase after the format to reach full performance.
As with The Destroyer, the Optane SSD sets records for both average and 99th percentile latency on the Heavy test. The margin for the 99th percentile latency is more significant, with about a 43% improvement over the previous record.
The average write latency of the Optane SSD 900P on the Heavy test comes in as a close second place, while the average read latency sets a new record that is less than half the previous best score.
The Optane SSD's new record for 99th percentile read latency on the Heavy test is 70% lower than the fastest flash-based SSD. The record for 99th percentile write latency is a less impressive 30% improvement over the previous record.
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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.