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

A few questions about the U.2 900P

BHarr8
Valued Contributor I
1,920 Views

Am I correct to assume that the 900P can be used as a cache drive just like the smaller M.2 based Optane drives?

If this is correct, will the entire 900P be used as cache or is there a limit to how much space can be used as cache?

Is there any difference/preference between connecting the 900P to a native U.2 port and a M.2 port via adapter when using it as a cache drive?

Is there any advantage to integrating Optane drivers directly into my OS image or is setting Optane up after the fact more or less the same thing?

 

FYI this is Windows 10 Pro 64bit RS3 being installed onto a Z370 with an Optane drive as cache and a 4 TB SATA SSD for the OS/Apps.

The goal is to have both huge capacity and the OS+frequently used apps accelerated. This is will be a high end multi-purpose single user PC with an emphasis on gaming.

I looked into doing RAID 0 with 2 2TB NVMe M.2 SSDs but the Q1/4K speeds will be far below Optane and that is what you "feel" with typical PC usage.

 

Thanks In advance.
0 Kudos
1 Solution
idata
Employee
909 Views

Hello nosirrahx,

 

 

Thank you for your interest in the Intel® Optane™ Memory.

 

 

Unlike the Intel® Optane™ Memory, the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series is not a system acceleration solution, so it is not intended to be used as a cache drive. Both devices share the Optane™ label because they are based on the 3D XPoint™ technology.

 

 

For more information about the features and benefits of the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series, please check the following link: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/gaming-enthusiast-ssds/optane-900p-series.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/gaming-enthusiast-ssds/optane-900p-series.html

 

 

Regarding your question about the "injection" of the drivers before or after the OS installation, there is no performance advantage per se. This is an option that we provide to customers that may want to install the OS on multiple systems, since integrating the drivers to the image may safe some time.

 

 

If you have another question, don't hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Regards,

 

Andres V.

View solution in original post

0 Kudos
8 Replies
idata
Employee
910 Views

Hello nosirrahx,

 

 

Thank you for your interest in the Intel® Optane™ Memory.

 

 

Unlike the Intel® Optane™ Memory, the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series is not a system acceleration solution, so it is not intended to be used as a cache drive. Both devices share the Optane™ label because they are based on the 3D XPoint™ technology.

 

 

For more information about the features and benefits of the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series, please check the following link: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/gaming-enthusiast-ssds/optane-900p-series.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/gaming-enthusiast-ssds/optane-900p-series.html

 

 

Regarding your question about the "injection" of the drivers before or after the OS installation, there is no performance advantage per se. This is an option that we provide to customers that may want to install the OS on multiple systems, since integrating the drivers to the image may safe some time.

 

 

If you have another question, don't hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Regards,

 

Andres V.
0 Kudos
BHarr8
Valued Contributor I
909 Views

Cool, that was most of what I needed to know.

Just interested in the "not intended to be used as a cache drive" part. Is that "it will work but its not designed to be used like this" or "it wont work at all this way"?

I really hate multiple drive letters so cache + main drive would have been optimal.

I am thinking that in any event the 900P is a killer OS drive and I could always just use a 2nd larger drive for less often used/less disk access dependent stuff.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
909 Views

Hello nosirrahx,

 

 

What I meant that is that it is not designed to be used as cache drive. I haven't personally tested this drive as secondary cache drive for a primary hard drive (it is not a validated configuration) so I can't assure you that it will work.

 

 

I understand that you find more convenient to have a cache + main drive configuration, but due to the features and specifications of the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series, the performance of your system will probably be better the way you pointed it out: Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P as primary drive and a second, larger drive, for less frequently accessed data.

 

 

Regards,

 

Andres V.
0 Kudos
BHarr8
Valued Contributor I
909 Views

Interesting.....

Since I am likely going to go with a 900P as a boot drive as a 2nd option anyway I will test this and report back, it will be a week or so from now.

Thinking about this more I think I remember running into a similar situation back when we were using SATA SSDs to cache 64 gigs of data via Intel SRT.

You could use a 64 gig partition for SRT and the rest could become a NTFS folder mounted within your OS drive.

 

You would have the same effect here. 1 drive letter and the entire SSD would be used, 64 gigs for SRT, the rest as a "fast" folder reserved for certain apps/data.

I kind of have a feeling that I can do something similar here. I will let you know either way.

Thanks again

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
909 Views

Hello nosirrahx,

 

 

You are welcome.

 

 

We are glad to hear that you are interested in sharing your experience with the community, we really appreciate it.

 

 

In case you have any update or another question, don't hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Regards,

 

Andres V.
0 Kudos
BHarr8
Valued Contributor I
909 Views

Final build and preliminary Optane testing is complete. I am happy to report that the 280GB U.2 Optane drive is indeed 100% compatible with Optane cache software.

I used a 1TB for testing purposes but will be jumping up to a 4TB Samsung 860 EVO drive now that I am 100% sure that all of this works.

I am attaching a screenshot of the final test results proving that indeed this does work.

Just to make things clear for anyone fallowing along, this is a corner case I was trying to solve. I needed to build a high performance system that was not cluttered with multiple drive letters or other obvious multiple drive annoyances.

This is a working (but expensive) workaround until Optane class SSDs reach 4TB+ in size.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
909 Views

Hello nosirrahx,

 

 

Thank you for sharing your configuration and the corresponding results with us.

 

 

The community appreciates it.

 

 

Regards,

 

Andres V.
0 Kudos
BHarr8
Valued Contributor I
909 Views

The final setup is complete, I am blown away by the performance.

The final build boots from Dr. Debug completion to desktop in 2 seconds, maybe even a little less. The UEFI post actually takes longer to complete than booting the OS does.

The performance with the 4TB drive is even better than the 1TB drive I did my testing on

0 Kudos
Reply