This week Intel finally launched higher-capacity Optane products. At STH, we noted that this was likely to happen in December 2017 in our piece Intel Optane 900p 960GB and 1.5TB AIC SSD Info Spotted. Optane is great, but capacities are low and there is another tranche of applications that it can be used for by increasing capacity. That is what the Intel Optane 905P does.
Intel Optane 905P 480GB U.2 and 960GB PCIe AIC
The Intel Optane 905P comes in two flavors that build upon the successful Intel Optane 900p generation. This is big news as Optane is awesome. STH readers have seen first hand how Intel Optane 900p series drives are game changers in some applications such as a ZFS ZIL/SLOG device.
For STH readers, the increased capacities allow Optane to be used in more scenarios such as database storage where 3D XPoint performs spectacularly well.
Intel Optane 905P Key Specs
Here are the key specs for the drives:
| Model Name | Intel® Optane™ SSD 905P Series | |
| Capacity | Half Height Half Length (HHHL) Add-in-Card: 960GB 2.5” x 15mm, Small Form Factor U.2: 480GB |
|
| Memory Media | 3D XPoint™ memory media | |
| Bandwidth: Sustained Sequential Read/Write | Up to 2600 / 2200 MB/s | |
| IOPS: Random 4KB Random Read/Write | Up to 575,000 / 550,000 IOPs | |
| Read/Write Latency | <10 μs /< 10 μs | |
| Interface | PCIe* 3.0 X4, NVMe* | |
| Form Factors, Height, and Weight | HHHL AIC 68.9mm / 17.2mm / 168mm up to 230 grams 2.5” U.2 15mm / 70mm / 101mm / up to 140 grams |
|
| Life Expectancy | 1.6 million hours Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) | |
| Lifetime Endurance3 | 10 Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) | |
| Power Consumption Typical | 480GB | 960GB |
| Active Sequential Read – Average Power: | 7.6W | 10.7W |
| Burst Sequential Read: | 7.7W | 11.2W |
| Active Write – Average Power: | 12.4W | 14.8W |
| Burst Sequential Write: | 12.8W | 16.4W |
| Idle: | 3.3W | 6.0W |
| Operating Temperature4 | 0° C to 85° C | |
| RoHS Compliance | Meets the requirements of European Union (EU) RoHS Compliance Directives | |
| Warranty | 5-year warranty; warranty void if used in a multiuser data center environment | |
Although the drives to not have the highest nominal throughput, as we have shown, performance at common queue depths is well beyond what NAND flash can deliver.
This is merely a musing, but for all the brilliance of supply chain financing efficiency, the fact of slow inventory turns had a damping effect on price moves.
In particular, the slowness of the supply chain of times past, discouraged speculators who could have to wait a long time before the parts of interest were shown as our of stock, or repriced.
Off hand, I am aware of no direct studies, but I usually am better informed after a applied effort searching CiteSeer (which just works for me best, YMMV)
I’m lucky or not, depending, in that I am privy to a unusual degree of confidence of sentiment in my listening to my customers. I can only offer anecdotal report, but both. RAM and storage price fluctuations – uncertainty rather than absolute cost, I have been told are having a exceptional influence on any investment that’s already been contended as optional in presenting BREXIT Britain. Energy and our dependence on French and Dutch power is more worrying but labelled BREXIT not computing concern.
I haven’t adequately been following stories of DRAM price fixing cartels, but I personally am more offput by the idea of market manipulation and later learning we overpaid for no fahr reason, than I am about absolute price per se. I find such things demoralising.
But I have to wonder, is it not in the manufacturer’s long term interest to stabilise prices by extending credit and lengthening the inventory cycle? Ultimately if you believe in efficient markets, one cannot halt demand raising prices, but you can avert customer reticence, planned capacity reduction or delays and altogether considerable wasted economic resources, simply by ending the most frequent repricing to”commodity” product that’s taken on a greater than commodity persona since a general recognition of memory bus speeds being the last engineered advantage available for strategic gain, at least in this technology epoch.
I never quite could cope with ever ceteris paribus in classes, and went hunting them in adult life. There’s many in the current computing market, at least I can attest that.
The above, all because as ever, I simply wish to see easier access to such important technology, especially for the small business.