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1365 Discussions

Questions about Optane H10 and M10

Residentx
New Contributor III
6,015 Views

I have some questions about these products.

 

I bought a new machine (HP Zbook Studio G5) and have a M10 and H10 module.

Before I put one of these in, I would like to talk to someone about their use.

 

  1. Is there a way to use one of these as a replica of my main SSD so I don't have to carry an external drive?
  2. How do I recover data put on the one with the storage (H10)? It has 512GB
  3. How will this be seen by windows, will this be an extra drive or extension of HDD?
  4. What is the warranty of these modules?
  5. How do I measure the performance? Is there a windows tool or do I need to download a specific Intel tool?
  6. What happens if I remove it? Will the computer still work?
  7. My Zbook has 64 GB of RAM, will Optane ignore that? I've seen diagrams that show the H10 module only using the Optane cache and storage.

 

Finally, if you reply...please post the question you are responding too. Thanks in advance.

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10 Replies
n_scott_pearson
Super User
5,528 Views

To the best of my knowledge,

 

  1. Don't even think about it. Always maintain an external backup and best to keep it offsite (fire, theft, etc. could lose you both otherwise).
  2. The H10 is essentially a souped up 660p SSD. You use it as a SSD, but, if you run the Optane software and turn on the Optane caching, you improve its performance. You recover from your external backup (it is not a replacement for that).
  3. Windows will see both parts separately until you enable the Optane caching. Once that happens, it will be seen by Windows as a single drive (only the Optane GUI will expose them separately).
  4. Warranties are discussed here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000020951/memory-and-storage.html.
  5. I don't think anything is offered by Intel. Use CrystalDiskMark or something like that. Remember though that the performance gain from the caching may not be seen with these tools. They may continue to display only the performance of the drive's base capabilities.
  6. If you have your O/S installed on the H10, removing the H10 removes the O/S and you cannot boot. If you used the H10 for additional storage (no, not as a backup!), removing it removes that additional storage.
  7. Correct; the H10 uses only its internal cache memory. Its presence and operation has nothing to do with your systems memory.

 

Since I had no other place in these answers to say so,

 

  • You can only have one Optane module in the system. If you use a H10 (which is SSD+Optane Module), I don't believe you can use the M10 Optane module.
  • Never remove an M10 Optane Module or H10 Optane SSD without first disabling the caching! Forgetting to do so could be disastrous!

 

Hope this helps,

...S

 

Residentx
New Contributor III
5,528 Views

Thanks for your comments. Today is over so I'll ask some closing questions tomorrow

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Residentx
New Contributor III
5,528 Views

Okay. I'm back on this. Do you ever have days where you have nothing to show from the day, lol. I'm having one of those today...

 

Moving along to Optane...

 

  1. You guys really need to create the R10 Optane module. The "R" stands for Replication. An R10 module just for system backup/uptime should have high demand. This is so logical that even Spock would agree with me.
  2. Let's say I have a H10 and move it to another computer. How do you format it for insertion? Does it have support for bitlocker to prevent theft?
  3. If a computer had a hard drive already, how will the H10 work with the computer? Who gets priority for boot? Is this set in the bios too. Basically, can the H10 work with the another drive or does it have to be the sole drive?
  4. Is this designed to augment HDD or SSD? I've seen performance with HDD and it's remarkable but SSD is almost even with the expection of Premiere Pro.

 

Finally, the data on the H10 Module is unrecoverable with a failure, right? Example, I can have a 2.5 sata fail but send to a vendor to recover it. This option won't work for H10, right?

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n_scott_pearson
Super User
5,528 Views

My responses...

 

  1. That makes no sense. A module that you semi-permanently attach to a motherboard, supposedly for the life of that motherboard, is not what you use for backups. You use a removable device, typically one with a USB (hopefully 3.1) interface.
  2. Format it? Why would you need to format it? Plug it in and it should be ready to go.
  3. It can be used as a secondary drive. I don't believe that you can have two H10 drives in a system, however. You decide in your BIOS configuration who gets priority at boot. time
  4. Not sure I understand the question. After an Optane M10 has been caching a HDD for a while, it will appear to have the same performance as that of a SSD cached by an M10 Optane module or that of a H10 Optane SSD.
  5. I believe correct. At the point of failure, I would think that, if there is any data that is cached in an Optane module but not committed to the permanent media (HDD or SSD), it is going to be lost. This could mean that the HDD or SSD could appear to be corrupted. In the case of a H10 Optane SSD, a failure is a failure and likely you cannot get to the contents of the SSD regardless. This is really no different than a failure in a M.2 SSD, however.

 

...S

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Residentx
New Contributor III
5,528 Views

That makes no sense to you because your xxxxxx...

 

Seriously, you can't understand this? Let me make my case here further...

 

Windows recovery is useless, right? It's useless because it only recovers their OS on the SAME DRIVE! If the drive fails...your done! What would be better is to recover windows/linux and YOUR DATA.

 

Let me give you my situation to bring this light. I had a laptop that I was copying data to an external drive periodically. I was having to carry this extra drive everywhere with me. It added extra weight.

 

The computer was durable but the drive failed. The NEW external drive I bought just 6 months ago that I thought was going to last me for years died too. I lost years of data that I had just moved to it.

 

If I would have had the optane memory module on the computer that was copying my main data regularly, I could have just rebooted to the Optane module kept the system going wherever I was and copied that data to wherever I wanted as a warning. No calls to helpdesk, no trips immediately to a computer store, etc. I got an actionable event about the condition of my computer.

 

Another example, In Montgomery County, Maryland the bus company here has outdoor displays out in the field that are always going offline and they have to dispatch trucks to fix. With a second module, they could potentially have another option to regain control of the displays and not dispatch trucks. Electronics are not consistently reliable and can fail expectantly. An additional, affordable Optane drive can make the computing world a better place. The warranty is great but it can never replace the data lost on the drive. Having an onboard second drive actually will reduce the need for the warranty because data is what EVERYONE wants to recover. They don't care about buying a new drive, the data, again, is what needs protecting.

 

I don't understand why the smart people at Intel don't get this. More options for system availability/uptime are immensely valuable. 

 

Having a backup storage on the board is extremely valuable. You need to unlearn what you have learned, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBTc9Y2bWiQ

 

New technology innovation mandates new thinking...

 

2. If I move an old module from an old computer to a new computer, I may need to format the drive for a new user/system. It may not be the same person who used it before.

3. When you say a secondary drive, can I specifically tell it to not be a part of the main storage? Example, when I add optane H10 512GB to a computer with 512GB, I get 1TB blended as drive X. Can I tell the Optane to not blend with the 512 main so I can see 2 512 drives(Drive X1 & Drive X2)? This will allow me manually to copy MY DATA for backup/preservation.

 

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n_scott_pearson
Super User
5,528 Views

First of all, I am not Intel (well, I was, I worked for them for 21 years, but I have been retired for a couple of years now).

 

I still don't buy into your usage model - at least not completely - but mainly because of the cost issue (I am not talking the dispatching truck kind). First of all, you certainly don't need an Optane-accelerated SSD to perform this function; a basic (much cheaper!) M.2 (even SATA) SSD will suffice just fine (in my mind, the Optane caching buys you absolutely nothing - and, in my mind, creates the potential for more problems than it solves). Secondly, I would think that corruption of the main SSD is a significantly rare event and one where a trip into the field would be warranted. No, the main thing that you need in the field is a capability for remotely resetting (or power cycling) a unit. When I was deploying embedded systems into the field (long, long ago; well before my time with Intel), supporting this capability was incredibly expensive and often involved a dedicated phone line. Now, this can be done for an almost insignificant cost.

 

You are thinking about the H10 incorrectly. When we talk about the super high performance M.2 SSDs - like those from Samsung, for example - the price absolutely goes through the roof as the drives get larger. In a H10 module, they can use slower and cheaper flash memory and grow the size without the same cost-adder. But, because the drive also has the Optane memory to accelerate its performance, you do not pay as large a penalty for using this slower flash memory. Bottom line, think about the H10 modules as being standalone SSDs and being able to use one as a secondary SSD, not as something that affects the whole storage subsystem. The unfortunate part (unless they have somehow removed the limitation and I didn't hear about it) is that the chipset can only support the caching operations of one Optane module - which means that you cannot have two H10 modules in a system. I really hope they remove this limitation...

 

...S

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Residentx
New Contributor III
5,528 Views

Let me finish my Optane training on the partner university before we talk again. I should complete that at this point before we talk more.

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Residentx
New Contributor III
5,528 Views
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Residentx
New Contributor III
5,528 Views

Can you re-open this case or just answer this question?

 

I installed 64GB of RAM into my Zbook G6 but when I was reading the guide above "it says there must be 15 MB or greater at the end of the drive (Page 7 on the installation guide) of unallocated (max LBA) "

 

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

 

Why is this necessary?

 

I guess I'll need to reformat my drive to make this work properly? I don't have a problem with this but I need to understand the details.

 

My system has 1TB and 64 GB of RAM. I need to size this properly before I'll install, okay?

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n_scott_pearson
Super User
5,528 Views

What this is saying is that there must be 15MB free at the end of the 1TB hard drive. This is used to store information about the Optane caching that is going on. The last partition on this driver should leave at least 15MB of unused space on the drive. If the partition(s) you have created on this drive do not leave this space, you will not be successful associating the Optane module with the hard drive.

...S

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