Turbocharge your SSD for $40??
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,631 words · ~8 min read
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Okay, so if you've read the title of the video, you've probably got a pretty good
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idea of what's in this box. But I don't
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have my knife. Clearly, at this point, I'm filming the video. I haven't read
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the title, so you're going to have to humor me as we
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uh come along on a voyage of discovery here.
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Okay, so we know it's from Intel Corporation. Could this be the plans for
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world domination that we ordered? I mean, what could be what could be red
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hot rush? That sounds dirty.
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All right, then. So, let's pop the side panel on this ow puppy.
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There we go. and get a better look at
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what's going to be pretty much the most generic damn computer I think I've ever
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seen in my life. But wait,
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maybe this is exactly the point they're trying
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to make. Maybe this 3D cross point
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accelerator Optane module is so amazing
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that it can make even this mid2000
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style beauty fly.
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Well, let's see if it can.
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All right, so what do we got here? We got B250 motherboard, the most generic
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RAM ever, WD Black, Core i57500. Yeah.
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Okay, whatever. Let's let's skip all over that. Let's get straight to the
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Optane memory series, Opane module,
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whatever. Let's let's skip over to this thing. So, this is a fundamentally new
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type of computer memory. It's different
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from both NAND flash and DRAM, offering
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up a lot of the benefits of both. So, lightning fast latency and lower cost
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than system memory and lower cost than
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system memory. Okay, here let's just pull this out with the ability to retain
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the data without being constantly powered on like this stuff. You can
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actually learn more about 3D cross point in a couple of videos that we've done in
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the past, which you can check out in the cards up there. Okay. So, the way this
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is supposed to work, why am I holding this? Sorry. The way this is supposed to
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work is kind of like Intel's SRT
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technology of yestery year, where you would take a a small SSD and you would
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like bolt it to a larger hard drive in order to accelerate your operating
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system and frequently used programs. The difference though is that in the last
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seven years, we've gone from 32 gigs of
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NAND flash being a reasonable cost to
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achieve this functionality to 32 gigs of
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Optane, which Intel is boasting at the
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cell level is up to a thousand times
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better in terms of access latency, which should translate to dramatically
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improved system responsiveness. Okay. So, for starters, let's get the
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Oops. Let's get the module back in there. Get this baby fired up.
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Get this baby fired up and validate Intel's claims the way the product is
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intended to be used. So, an Optane module with a mechanical spinning hard
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drive. Probably shouldn't have been knocking on that. So in terms of benchmarks, we used pass marks, discark,
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ADO at a variety of QEPs, boot times,
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and Grand Theft Auto 5 since it's
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notoriously long loading times are the
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bane of the existence of gamers who
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really play a lot of Grand Theft Auto 5 everywhere.
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But come on, you guys, this is Linus Tech Tips. You don't want to see me test
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the Optane module the way it's supposed to be used, the way Intel expects us to
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test it. We need uh Here, hold on. Get
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one of these out of here. Ah, yes. We
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need an SSD. I mean, by my logic, if an
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SSD could accelerate a hard drive, cuz
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it's a lot faster with much lower latency, then an Optane module
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should be able to accelerate an SSD. I
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asked them about this at the super embargoed event, and they refused to
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answer me, opting instead to stick to the marketing message. I'm not going to
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accept that. I've got the hardware in my hands. There's nothing that would
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prevent me from testing this. So, let's shut this baby down the manly way.
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That's right. And fire it back up with one of these and have a look at some
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numbers here. Before we can evaluate whether Optane
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can accelerate the SSD, we need to get a baseline reading for the SSD in all
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those same performance benchmarks. So, it's a Kingston SSD now KC4001 TB. And
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you can see here we've got all of our numbers run now and Intel Optane memory
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is disabled. Now this is really important. We enable it by clicking
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enable then yes and then it takes a
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couple of seconds here in order to prepare the system, copy some files,
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whatever the case may be. Okay, there we go. So now what we need to do is run all
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of our benchmarks a second time to see
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on our clean Optane run if there's any
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improvement and the numbers are pretty
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much the same but we were expecting that Optane like any caching solution works
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by watching data access patterns over
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time and then using the knowledge that
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it gains to predict what data the user
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is going to need in the future. So then
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what we needed to do was run an entirely
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new round of testing to get a second run
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of data to see what our module learned the first time around. And this time now
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we are looking at a significant difference. And by significant, I do
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mean in the scientific sense, not in the sense that in realworld applications,
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the average user would actually notice it since the Optane acceleration of an
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SSD was only really noticeable in
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synthetic benchmarks. Okay, so it's conclusion time then.
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That was a lot of fun, but I think we uncovered the reason why Intel doesn't
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want people talking about accelerating an SSD with an Optane module. If you
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want greater than SSD performance, there
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will actually be full-on Optane SSDs for
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enthusiasts coming in the future. But for now, I'd recommend at the price that
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they come in at, so 40 bucks or 77,
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depending on the capacity you choose, I'd recommend sticking with the way
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Intel's marketing them as a way to accelerate a mechanical hard drive for a
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system that otherwise wouldn't be able to achieve that level of responsiveness.
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It works like SRT, but thanks to the improved responsiveness, we did notice a
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tangible difference day-to-day just launching applications and navigating
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the operating system from having the Optane module installed on our drive. Is
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it worth the 77 bucks for the top-of-the-line one? It's hard to say.
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Like so many things in life, I guess it
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kind of depends on your priorities. And that's where Intel has lost me a little
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bit on this one because they are limiting compatibility with Optane
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memory to 200 series chipsets with KBL
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Lake processors and up. So most of the
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people that Intel's trying to sell an accelerator module for a hard drive to
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have a brand new system. And I would question why exactly it is that they
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don't then have a boot SSD for that
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aforementioned system. But I'd love to hear that I'm wrong. Let me know you
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guys based on what you know now that Optane is flipping cool and that it
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really does work. Do you see this as a
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valid way to use your system or would you just kind of go, you know what, I'll
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using the link in the video description. So, thanks for watching, guys. If you
10:18
enjoyed this video, then you can click that like button. I mean, there is also
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the other one, but
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and if you really enjoyed it, you can get subscribed. You can check out where
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to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description. And you can
10:31
check out both our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our
10:34
community forum, which we will also have linked, you know, down there, if you
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know what I mean.
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I'm always watching out of the corner of my eye for the camera person to uh
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cringe. Then I know I've delivered it just right.
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Oh.