Intel® Optane™ Memory
Support for Issues Related to Intel® Optane™ Memory
Announcements
Want to learn how Intel® Optane™ Memory can help your business? Talk to our Expert!

Looking for our RealSense Community? Click HERE

The Intel® SSD Toolbox and Intel® Data Center Tool are now End-Of-Life, see for more information and replacements tools here
1343 Discussions

Can I dual boot another Windows 10 version WITHOUT Optane acceleration?

Fun_Clark
Beginner
3,052 Views

I need to install Windows 10 Enterprise in a separate partition on a 1TB+16GB Optane Windows 10 Home system. I saw in the frequently asked questions that "a SATA drive with multiple boot partitions/volumes isn't supported", but my question is slightly different as I don't need my second OS to be accelerated, and hence no Optane software will be installed there.

 

Will this work and can I use dual boot in this case, or worse, is it going to damage my current installation? I don't want to mess up my new laptop and end up doing a factory reset after having spent so much time updating it and installing various software!

 

Appreciate your replies.

0 Kudos
1 Solution
DiegoV_Intel
Moderator
1,081 Views

Hi Fun Clark,

 

You only have to disable the module from the application. After it is disabled, then you can do any change in your drive, like installing the second OS.

 

There is no need to change any settings in BIOS.

 

After you have disabled the module, you can check Disk Management to see if the module appears as another unit in your system, and your drive as another separate unit. This confirms that the module has been disabled. Disk Management can be opened by pressing the Windows* key + x, and then selecting the Disk Management option from the menu that will appear.

 

I hope you find this information useful.

 

If there is anything else I can help you with, feel free to ask.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Regards,

Diego V.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

View solution in original post

11 Replies
RAJU2529
New Contributor III
1,081 Views

I think , its not supported , I dont have optane memory

0 Kudos
Fun_Clark
Beginner
1,081 Views

This is a specific question. I hope someone from Intel or a user with prior experience in multi boot with Optane can provide some information and guidelines how to go about this especially if there are risks involved.

0 Kudos
DiegoV_Intel
Moderator
1,081 Views
Hi Fun Clark, Thank you for posting in the Intel® communities. The configuration you are referring to is a non-supported configuration and therefore, it has not been tested nor validated. This means that the results and behavior of the module and system setup are not known, so I cannot tell you what the expected behavior is, or how each partition will work. On the other hand, I can remember a thread some months ago where a user was trying to have a dual boot drive working with the Intel® Optane™ Memory. He had Windows* OS accelerated with the Intel® Optane™ Memory, and another partition where he installed Ubuntu*. According to his description, he could boot from Windows* and the module was paired with the drive and working fine, but he couldn’t boot from the Ubuntu* partition. As that was a non-supported configuration too, we couldn’t say how the system were going to behave. This is all information I can share with your regarding to your inquiry. My recommendation is to keep using the current and supported configuration. It’s up to you if you want to try the other setup, however we don’t guarantee the module or the system will work as expected. Have a nice day. Regards, Diego V. Intel Customer Support Technician Under Contract to Intel Corporation
0 Kudos
Fun_Clark
Beginner
1,081 Views

Hi Diego,

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

Multi booting is an inherent feature of computers, fully supported by Windows and other OS’s. Now Optane is introducing some serious limitation to it. I understand that Optane memory is designed to accelerate only one system at a time. Fine! What if you need to install another OS in a separate partition on the same disk? Can’t you do this even WITHOUT accelerating the second OS? Does this mean if you use Optane, you cannot use multi booting on the same disk at all?

 

Frankly speaking, Intel is punishing their customers who have been unfortunate and bought new computers with Optane pre-installed. Instead of working with them and providing them with technical details and guidelines to help them meet their multi OS needs, Intel is simply copping out and hiding behind their own FAQ’s as if they were some holy scripture. Now, we the customers, have to become guinea pigs and blindly experiment with our new computers because Intel just wants to be in the safe side, and doesn’t want to take full responsibility and properly support their own new bleeding edge technology!

 

I have been searching this topic for several days, and probably have seen all the threads out there. I've seen the thread your referred to but I recall he had two separate disks one with Windows and the other Ubuntu, and after pairing Windows with Optane he couldn't boot Ubunto anymore. I think it was because Ubuntu was installed in AHCI and the UEFI bios setting was changed to RST

0 Kudos
DiegoV_Intel
Moderator
1,081 Views

Hi Fun Clark,

 

I understand you completely, however at this moment, this configuration is not validated. It may be possible that it works, but it may also possible that is doesn’t work, but as it has not been validated, it’s not possible for me to give you more specific details.

 

I can however, forward your feedback to the Engineer Team so they can consider including this possibility in future releases.

 

Thank you for the clarification, I recalled the thread but I wasn’t sure if the Windows* and Ubuntu OS were in the same drive or in separately units.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Regards,

Diego V.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

Fun_Clark
Beginner
1,081 Views

Thank you very much Diego for your quick replies.

 

Please forward it to your Engineering Team. I hope they can give us at least a theoretical opinion on this subject for now. I don't want to blindly experiment with my new laptop.

 

You know, ever since I got my new laptop with 16GB Optane preinstalled, I have been trying to make some sense of having it in a consumer PC occupying my only precious M.2 slot instead of a proper SSD. I agree that in spite of its many disadvantages it does accelerate the system and definitely much better than an HDD alone, but it doesn’t come cheap. For the same price of a 16GB Optane I could’ve had at least a 128GB M.2 SSD to be used for OS’s and keep the HDD for storage. The advantages of this would be obvious, very fast drive for multiple OS’s (number limited only by available space) versus a single Optane accelerated, and an increase of at least 100GB in storage capacity. For an additional $20-30, you could double SSD capacity and even get an NVMe SSD.

 

Sorry Intel, I just wish I had an SSD instead of Optane :(

0 Kudos
DiegoV_Intel
Moderator
1,081 Views

Hi Fun Clark,

 

I have forwarded your feedback, however I cannot guarantee you that this feature will be added in future releases.

 

Currently, the configuration is not supported and there are no additional information about this that I can provide to you.

 

I understand what you are saying, and it’s true that in some cases it’s better to add a new SSD instead of the Intel® Optane™ Memory. However, you may consider as well that it’s up to the laptop manufacturer to include the module in any specific model. If the laptop only has one M.2 slot available, it’s up to the user to use another SSD or the module (or to not use any of these). Maybe, it would have been better to include the Intel® Optane™ Memory in a laptop that has 2 M.2 slots so that you can still add another SSD to the system. Anyhow, and as I mentioned, this is up to the manufacturer to decide which systems will include the Intel® Optane™ Memory.

 

I personally don’t recommend you to setup your primary drive with 2 OS’s, but if you need to have the 2 systems in your laptop, then it may be better to not use the Intel® Optane™ Memory, and to use instead another SSD, or just the single HDD with the 2 OS’s installed.

 

If there is anything else I can help you with, just let me know.

 

Regards,

Diego V.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

Fun_Clark
Beginner
1,081 Views

"......but if you need to have the 2 systems in your laptop, then it may be better to not use the Intel® Optane™ Memory, and to use instead another SSD, or just the single HDD with the 2 OS’s installed."

 

My only choice is to use a single HDD since my laptop is just one month old, and I don't want to make any hardware changes which will void the warranty. So in order to achieve this (if my understanding of Optane usage is correct) I will need to disable Optane in RST application in Windows prior to installing a second OS. Do I also need to make any changes to UEFI BIOS settings, or is disabling Optane in Windows sufficient?

 

Thank you Diego and best regards

0 Kudos
DiegoV_Intel
Moderator
1,082 Views

Hi Fun Clark,

 

You only have to disable the module from the application. After it is disabled, then you can do any change in your drive, like installing the second OS.

 

There is no need to change any settings in BIOS.

 

After you have disabled the module, you can check Disk Management to see if the module appears as another unit in your system, and your drive as another separate unit. This confirms that the module has been disabled. Disk Management can be opened by pressing the Windows* key + x, and then selecting the Disk Management option from the menu that will appear.

 

I hope you find this information useful.

 

If there is anything else I can help you with, feel free to ask.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Regards,

Diego V.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

Fun_Clark
Beginner
1,081 Views

ok, I hope these will be my last questions :)

 

  1. I believe there will be no need to install RST driver for the 2nd OS, and the built-in Windows "Microsoft storage space controller" driver should be good enough, am I right?
  2. When can I re-enable Optane in my primary OS? Is it it necessary to remove the second OS before I can do that, or it can be enabled while it is still there?
0 Kudos
DiegoV_Intel
Moderator
1,081 Views

Hi Fun Clark,

 

Don’t worry about the questions, I’ll try to help you in any way possible, so if you have additional doubts, don’t hesitate to ask.

 

For the first question, the Intel® RST driver is necessary for the module to be setup in the system. If you will disable the module and you won’t use the Intel® Optane™ Memory at all, then there is no need for the Intel® RST driver. Additionally, the second OS is another system setup so there is no need to install the driver there.

 

For the second question, as mentioned before, a system with 2 OSs is a configuration not supported by the Intel® Optane™ Memory, so the behavior is not known. You might be able to enable the module in the original OS even if the second OS is still installed in another partition of the same drive, but on the other hand, it may also possible that it does not work at all. My recommendation for you is that if you want to use again the module, then remove the second OS (or format the entire drive) and then try to enable the module.

 

I hope this information clarifies the doubts.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Regards,

Diego V.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

Reply