Intel's New M.2 Optane Memory H10 SSDs: Optane Paired With QLC Flash

[PaulAlcorn]

Intel released new H10 Optane SSDs that come paired with QLC flash to boost capacity.

Intel's New M.2 Optane Memory H10 SSDs: Optane Paired With QLC Flash : Read more

 

[AnimeMania]

They should slap that inside a 4 to 8 TB hard drive and sell the whole thing.

 

[Giroro]

QLC? Gross.

I feel bad for the engineers who spent over a decade developing a revolutionary fast and durable new storage technology, only to see it utterly wasted on caching the cheapest, slowest, least reliable flash memory ever mass produced.

I hate the SSD industry's race to the bottom. Especially since exciting developments in speed and longevity like Optane are doomed to die on the vine as companies increase production on drives with shorter warranties than physical-wear and tear spinning disks.

 

[William_X89]

Agreeing with Giroro on this one, wasting good tech on sub-par flash memory. I won't go lower than TLC.

 

[DavidC1]

@Giroro

I like Optane, but you have to be realistic here. It's very high priced. The market doesn't accept it because of it. Besides, faster storage benefits far less people than faster CPU. SSDs are already considered pricey by mainstream standards, and you think Optane adoption should be quick? Slower computer is a frivolous issue.

Some reports say Intel isn't merely being greedy with Optane. They said the production costs are high enough they have to price it that high.

 

[owhansson]

They could be on to something here. If they get their caching algorithms right, this could be a winner when it comes to the average consumer. Our moms and dads and non-techy friends would get a better UX. I wonder how having dual controllers will affect price, though. And does the Optane do write caching? That would be where the increase in durability comes from. Overall, I think caching with Optane, if done right, could make QLC much more viable.

But it also seems to me Intel has a hard time getting their 3D Xpoint memory sold and thus are trying to find more uses for it. Let's hope this is not just that.

 

[Diabl0]

Another joke from Intel.

 

[stdragon]

They could be on to something here. If they get their caching algorithms right, this could be a winner when it comes to the average consumer. Our moms and dads and non-techy friends would get a better UX. I wonder how having dual controllers will affect price, though. And does the Optane do write caching? That would be where the increase in durability comes from. Overall, I think caching with Optane, if done right, could make QLC much more viable.

But it also seems to me Intel has a hard time getting their 3D Xpoint memory sold and thus are trying to find more uses for it. Let's hope this is not just that.

With QLC, it's sacrificing IOPS for storage density. It definitely becomes more apparent as IO (PCIe lanes and speed) expands with future standards. So from that aspect, it's kinda necessary to break the SSD into two or more layers of cache. The problem I have with it is the increase in complexity that's inherently more prone to errors and HW faults down the road. Yes yes, do backups and all that, but still.

Question is - will this become the 'new normal' for "prosumer" market as well? Or, is this prosumer with average new SSD storage being all QLC?

 

[bigdragon]

@Giroro

I like Optane, but you have to be realistic here. It's very high priced. The market doesn't accept it because of it

Let's not forget the vendor lock-in problem. If Optane were available on AMD or ARM I think it would have much better adoption rates. Price is only part of the problem here. Reducing the quality of Optane parts and dropping prices don't fix ecosystem limitations. I don't think Intel knows who the customers for Optane are anymore.

 

[Brian_R170]

Agreeing with Giroro on this one, wasting good tech on sub-par flash memory. I won't go lower than TLC.

Don't you think the same thing that happened with SLC and MLC will happen with TLC in the near future?

 

[Brian_R170]

Let's not forget the vendor lock-in problem. If Optane were available on AMD or ARM I think it would have much better adoption rates. Price is only part of the problem here. Reducing the quality of Optane parts and dropping prices don't fix ecosystem limitations. I don't think Intel knows who the customers for Optane are anymore.

Only the Optane cache modules are restricted to Intel systems with RST (which isn't entirely accurate since you can find articles and videos where people used Optane cache modules with AMD StoreMI). The Optane SSDs like the 800p/900p/905p work like a regular SSD, so they have no such limitation.