Today is the Intel Optane Memory for client PCs launch day and there is something conspicuously absent, being able to buy one. Intel had told us back in March during a press briefing that we could expect the m.2 Intel Optane Memory m.2 drives on April 24, 2017. That day is here and we did an availability check.
Where Are the Intel Optane Memory m.2 Drives?
We are planning to get a few m.2 Optane drives in systems for our DemoEval service over the next few weeks. As a result, we were looking to buy a decent quantity of them. When we looked on launch day (today) we had a better chance of finding a polar bear in Hawaii.
Before you assume that retailers had no notice of them, we have a counterpoint. We were able to pre-order one yesterday. They were online for $45 (16GB model) with Prime shipping. At the time of this writing, they are now listed as “Currently Unavailable.”
We also spot checked Newegg and the drives are not available there.
eBay generally has resellers who pull inventory from large drop ship distributors. As a result, there are times when Intel CPUs and drive show up on ebay before larger retailers. We checked today and nothing.
Getting desperate, we headed over to two of the largest brick and mortar PC component retailers in the Silicon Valley. Neither outlet had them in stock. We asked the second one if they had them on a loading dock. They said that their distributors did not have stock yet.
Final Words
If you are starting to notice a pattern here, you should. The Intel DC P4800X seems to be in very short supply as well. Here is a saved Amazon search for that. We have been trying to buy one for DemoEval since the alleged launch on March 19, 2017, but have been unable to thus far.
This is unfortunate as we have a budget set aside to acquire these devices, yet we still cannot. We just need someone to take our money.
In the meantime, check out our initial Intel Optane data center benchmarks and real-world test results.
Have you seen the endurance parameters for these ? 32GB model is only 183TB ! 183TB / (5yr warranty * 365 days) = 100MB per day
https://ark.intel.com/products/99742
I was thinking about using them for write caches, as the latency is not bad :-) but with these endurance figures they will not last long.
Ted, I have. I believe you are thinking 100GB/ day not MB.
Patric, you are right :-) MB is a bit too low.
My local supplier in Australia is telling me May 2nd. Waiting hopefully for it.