Intel Optane DC P4800X with Memory Drive Technology Discontinued

Intel has just announced that it is discontinuing the Optane DC P4800X with its accompanying Memory Drive Technology Plans. The last order date is set for June 30, 2021 with the last shipment date of September 30, 2021. Intel is in the middle of a technology transition to its new DDR4-3200/ PCIe Gen4 portfolio. Still, with recent reports that Micron is abandoning 3D XPoint, Intel could have used some messaging on this one.

Intel Optane DC P4800X with Memory Drive Technology Discontinued

Here are the Intel Optane DC P4800X with Memory Drive Technology being discontinued:

As one can see, these are both the add-in card and U.2 variants of the drives. These are also the single and 10-packs of the SSDs.

Along with the P4800X bundle end-of-life (EOL) we also see that the Intel Memory Drive Technology support is being discontinued, this is probably a blow to Intel’s partner ScaleMP here as Intel is using ScaleMP’s technology for this:

For those who are not familiar with Intel Memory Drive Technology, it is actually something that was likely more used on client PCs than servers. When Intel pushed the launch of the Optane DIMMs yet forged ahead with the launch of Optane in SSD form, the basic idea was that Intel would use fast DC P4800X PCIe SSDs as a way to extend memory capacity. Hot data would be written to DRAM, but then could be pushed to the slower SSD tier. That is similar to the Intel Optane Memory for the desktop offering, just on a larger scale.

For STH readers, you may have read our Glorious Complexity of Intel Optane DIMMs and Micron Exiting 3D XPoint article and will notice that there are conceptual similarities between how Intel Memory Drive Technology and the Optane DIMMs operate in Memory Mode.

Since Intel is EOL’ing the drives, it makes sense that the software that goes along with the drives is also being discontinued since it carries a 5-year support period.

Final Words

It is fairly normal for Intel to discontinue its SSDs and offerings over time. The Optane DC P5800X is much faster, so if one had to choose, one would pick the P5800X over the P4800X. As a result, we can see why Intel would discontinue the older drive with Memory Technology. In SSDs, the biggest cost is the media so using 3D XPoint packages in either product, one would prefer them in the new PCIe Gen4 SSD. At the same time, given the P4800X’s cost, the drive is going to be found in sensitive high-value applications. For STH readers, this is one we would suggest taking a look at to ensure you have spares and warranty/ support coverage for any that are currently deployed, especially if you would have a challenge from a policy perspective around using a different but newer model.

While the consumer drives have effectively been discontinued as well, we still have the P4801X M.2 and U.2 versions as current-generation drives, but those seem like they will be imminently replaced.

For the Memory Drive Technology, the big question is whether we get broader software models for CXL-based memory pools and persistent memory. Time will tell on that one. Still, perhaps most interesting is that one can use ScaleMP’s software alongside standard NVMe SSDs, albeit with a different level of performance.