Intel Optane Memory 32GB NVMe drive reading in one part of the Intel Optane Memory App/Program as a 32GB drive (Under Setup), but after latest driver/firmware update, the usable/pin-able storage dropped from over 22GB to 7.2GB?

[SilentObserver64]

Yesterday I installed the Intel driver update tool, which updated my drivers for my wireless card, Bluetooth card, and my Optane drive. After the update I noticed a much, much slower boot time, which I thought was because it needed to recache the page file, and recently used stuff. I didn't really check on anything until today, then I noticed that I had 0.1GB available to use, for pin-able storage, whereas before, I had over 22GB. I do remember telling the installer, to format the drive, to start fresh, during the update. So I disabled the drive, then rebooted, then re-enabled, then rebooted, even checking in my BIOS that everything was configured correctly, then again on the drive, device manager, etc. As it was before I disabled and re-enabled the drive, again it immediately re-cached everything, still only showing a total 7.2GB pinnable storage, which it in turn used all but 0.1GB worth for system files, and top accessed content, with ZERO pinned files. What is going on here? Did the memory module get corrupted somehow? Do I need to disable it, reformat it, and start over again? How can I fix this?

[Santiago_A_Intel]

Hi SilentObserver64 ,

Thank you for contacting Intel® SSD support group with your request for assistance with your Intel® Optane™ Memory.

In order to diagnose properly the hardware, please provide us with the following information:

•   SSU logs.

1-     Go to https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/

2-     Download the software.

3-     When finished downloading it, open it

4-     Please attach the SSU Log file obtained to your reply.

•    A screenshot of the “Disk Management” of windows showing all your HDDs and partitions.

We will be looking forward to your reply including this information.

Best regards,

Santiago A.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[SilentObserver64]

Ok. I will do that when I get off of work. Also forgot to mention, that after installation of new driver, one of the processes did not start, and was set to manual rather than automatic, and under properties, all 3 tabs for actions were set to no action. I'll get the name of that process as well. I went ahead and changed it to be automatic already, so the program would​ run, and the memory would do it's job. Also, do you need any of the windows error logs, installation logs, or the DISM.log as well?

[Santiago_A_Intel]

Hi SilentObserver64 ,

Thank you for your reply to Intel® SSD support group.

As per your comments, we would like to know the name of the process halted after installation.

Details on windows error logs, installation logs, or the DISM.log are not necessary at this moment.

Also, at this point, we do not know much about your system, in case, if this is an OEM system, let us tell you, Intel® provides generic versions of hardware, software and drivers. Your computer manufacturer may have altered the features, incorporated customizations, or made other changes.

We will need to get the requested information to start our analysis and be able to help you out.

We will be looking forward to your reply including this information.

Best regards,

Santiago A.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[SilentObserver64]

Attached are several files, though some of the information may be repetitive/redundant. This PC, is a custom built high end gaming computer. As far as I am aware, there are no custom built "OEM" drivers like those made usually by HP or Dell, etc. per se, except for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver, which I don't use because I have the Optane drive, which supersedes that former said driver. The website to my motherboard is as follows: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-Z370-P-II/HelpDesk_Download/

I would like to hopefully get this figured out, so I may also hopefully continue using this technology with the current paired HDD as a secondary data/storage/backup drive, after I upgrade to the Samsung SSD 970 EVO NVMe M.2 2TB drive next week. I thank you for any and all help in advance, and for prior help. (May have to upload the documents outside of this reply, as a new comment, due to it's one attachment only per reply.)

[SilentObserver64]

posted a file.

[SilentObserver64]

File deleted to protect personal information as a security risk.

[SilentObserver64]

posted a file.

[Santiago_A_Intel]

Hi SilentObserver64 ,

Thank you for your reply to Intel® SSD support group.

We have reviewed your SSD files and found one simple detail that will turn everything around on any Optane™ Memory installation. See bellow an extract of your SSU’s Log:

# SSU Scan Information

Scan Info:

 Version:"2.5.0.15"

 Date:"03/15/2019"

 Time:"00:00:13.3493119"

# Scanned Hardware

Computer:

         BaseBoard Manufacturer:"ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC."

         BIOS Mode: "Legacy"

         BIOS Version/Date:"American Megatrends Inc. 0411 , 09/21/2018 12:00 AM"

Please note, your BIOS Mode is set to Legacy, it needs to be changed to UEFI, in order to have your system ready for Optane™ Memory.

Please refer to the following link from your OEM (Asus*) to make sure you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard. https://www.asus.com/microsite/mb/intel-optane-ready/

Your motherboard manufacturer has created an instruction manual, in order to perform the basic setup to use your Optane™ memory in your system; please, find details in the manual that can be found here:

http://dlcdnmkt.asus.com/microsite/Optane-Memory-SOP.pdf  

Might you have specific questions regarding Optane™ Memory on your system, please refer to this link for general information on FAQ’s: http://dlcdnmkt.asus.com/microsite/optane-memory-faq.pdf

For your benefit, Intel® has created several tools to help you out, please follow instructions on the Installation Guide for Intel® Optane™ Memory; it can be found on the following link:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000023989/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory.html

In addition to this, Intel® offers convenient video resources to accomplish your Optane™ Installation, please follow this link:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000023884/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory.html

We will be looking forward to your reply.

Best regards,

Santiago A.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

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[SilentObserver64]

Hello Santiago.

Please read carefully. As I do appreciate the insight and the information, though most of it, did prove un-useful for me.

Over the past week or so, I have done a ton of research, and know most of the in's and outs, about most/all of the RST software, and the Optane hardware, and software, to include installation, setup, can do's and can't do's. To include the 3D XPoint (pronounced three dee cross point) non-volatile memory (NVM) technology, developed jointly by Intel and Micron Technology, and how Intel is trying to bridge the gap between the high-speed but low-capacity flash memory that computers use for RAM and the high-capacity but relatively low speed memory used in SSDs. Not terribly hard to figure out the mechanics of it all, based on what little information there is about the technology, architecture, materials used, etc, as I have done IT work off and on for over 20 years. However, I did not get a chance (yet) to try and pinpoint the issue fully.

I also have had and still do have, all the latest and greatest updates from all of the vendors of my hardware, for all said firmware and software. (Not to mention, probably a ton more software than most, to include occasional beta's for various things, Window's Insider Programs, etc. just haven't gotten around to installing most of them on this new PC yet.)

I do know that it is most likely a software issue, with the last update, possibly the last 2 updates. I'm not certain yet if it's with the Optane software, or the Optane pinning program, or maybe the management software misreporting the available storage. When I bought my machine, I already had the Intel Optane 32GB NVMe gum stick already installed, as was all the software, and was pre-setup at the factory. Everything worked fine, and everything reported to the management console was correct, which leads me to believe it's the software, because I didn't have this issue before the update. It doesn't appear to be a hardware issue, because it was working before hand, and the computer has no problem seeing the drive, nor pairing with the main boot drive, and the reported drive size (32GB) is also correct. The Windows Disk Management console, as well as other partitioning software, all saw the drive normally, including available space, after the drive was unpaired (though I never formatted it manually, so it was always unallocated space afterwards).

The original Optane software that my computer came with, showed the proper remaining storage (approx. 27GB if I remember correctly) and worked wonderfully for pinning whatever files I wanted accelerated, as well as much improved boot times. It only started to show the largely reduced storage capacity (system usable and pin-able storage) AFTER I installed the Intel Driver & Support Assistant, which updated the version from the factory (MB Manufacturer has also since updated their drivers from the ones mine shipped with, and didn't look to see if there was any previous drivers to install).

I then tried 5 or 6 versions of software (about the last 3 updates of each) both directly from Intel and 2 from my MB manufacturer, to include 2 or 3 versions of the RST software, and 2 or 3 versions of the Optane software.

All of the software would install correctly (minus that first time I updated, and the one process didn't start like it was supposed to, but I corrected that), however, ONLY THE OPTANE SOFTWARE, would show incorrect values, and remaining storage, which would be virtually nothing. After the latest driver from Intel (17.2 I believe?) that just came out, the remaining storage, was even worse, dropping from 7.2 or so gigabytes, down to 5.7GB or something like that.

With the RST software installed (uninstalled Optane), it seemed to work correctly. It also showed the correct values (drive size of 32GB and available disk space 27GB paired with the 2TB hard drive, and allowed for pin-able storage (I know that's a separate program and process that comes with both programs). Down side to that, is no available statistics, to see how much of the drive was actually left available (Even after running the optimization software), if I remember correctly, to pin to, as was designed by Intel. Everything was accelerated, and everything pinned seemed to be accelerated as well. It all seemed to be working correctly in so far as how the RST software was designed, and the limited options available, under the management console.

I didn't spend the time after that, to try and see if I could find the original software that came with my computer, to see if I could get it to read like it did when I first bought this machine.

I can also tell you, that as you pointed out, that all of my BIOS setting were correct, EXCEPT, the storage drive part had been forced to LEGACY output, rather than being forced into UEFI output, like it was before the initial update the first time.

So with that update, after noticing the huge storage reduction, the process of uninstalling Optane changed the CMOS/EEPROM settings. and how the BIOS/UEFI saw or started my Boot drive, probably after it unpaired with it, and was no longer in RAID mode, the UEFI automatically switched it to legacy mode, but even after fixing it, the issue still remained.

I made sure, and triple checked that all of my settings from my BIOS, to the installation of the software, running processes, disk management, and that I had unallocated space at the END of my drive (more than 5mb) for Optane to store it's configuration data, etc. and much more, were all correct, yet still resulted in the same results as stated above.

I believe the problem resides, in either an incorrectly configured or corrupted registry setting that occurred from the initial update (I never fully deleted Optane or RST from my computer, except from programs add/unistall method), or possibly a programming flaw in one of the dll's. Maybe the software commands are not instructing Windows to truly format the NVMe drive (like a quick format and only the system volume info/partition table is overwritten), and/or the TRIM table is not being zero'd out, and the previous data still exists, unseen and unusable due to the the configuration data/tables. Maybe the old .ini files are not being deleted during uninstall. It could be a number of things.

I will definitely have to try and figure this all out at some point, but for now I have since replaced the Intel 32GB NVMe with a 2TB Samsung Evo NVMe SSD, cloned my hard drive, and now boot from the SSD, then installed another hard drive I had (an external at the time), and setup a 2TB RAID Data Backup. I didn't reinstall the Intel Optane gum stick, because I'm missing the required spacer, and screw I need to install it into the second NVMe M2.2 slot, but when I get them, I will reinstall it, and see if I can't figure out what is going on. I know that I will have to install another HDD, SSHD, or SSD (SATA 6 not NVMe, to break past the bottleneck), to "boost" a secondary hard drive, as Optane does not support RAID configurations.

So for now, the case is unsolved, but closed, until I can get the required hardware, and narrow down the issue.

I also understand you are limited in the support you can provide, as well as the 3rd party disclaimers, etc, due to Intel's strict policies, and no liability clauses. Hopefully the links you provided will help someone, and I do appreciate the help. Most of the links provided in a lot of these threads that I have read across multiple issues in this OPTANE forum, and elsewhere, though some proved to be informative, was either repetitive, redundant, not related at all, like the person responding never read the post in the first place or thoroughly, and just kept repeating the same links & information over and over, or somebody else just repeating information that someone else had already said prior. So there wasn't much for me to go on to narrow down and trouble shoot this particular issue.

Hopefully I can figure this out, and post back to this forum with a solution, to help others in the future.

I appreciate your time Santiago, and good luck out there.

[Santiago_A_Intel]

Hi SilentObserver64,

Thank you for contacting Intel® SSD Support.

This is a friendly reminder your case remains open, awaiting for your reply.

Please let us know if you might need further assistance after contacting OEM.

Have a nice day.

Best regards,

Santiago A.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation