Micron to ship Intel Optane competitor later this year

EDIT: Micron to ship Intel Optane competitor later this year
Micron's QuantX will ship later this year, which will then be adopted by storage makers


Intel's spanking new high-capacity Optane SSD is cool, but drives from other storage vendors based on the 3D Xpoint technology could be coming later this year.

Micron will start shipping its 3D Xpoint memory technology -- branded QuantX -- later this year, which will go into SSDs offered by storage makers. The company made that announcement during an earnings call on Friday.
Intel and Micron co-developed 3D Xpoint. Intel says Optane is significantly faster and could replace conventional SSDs and DRAM in the coming years.

But unlike Intel, Micron is not interested in making its own Optane-like storage. The company is licensing its 3D Xpoint technology to other storage makers. Micron's QuantX will also be available the form of DDR-style memory, the company has said.

It's not yet known which storage makers will offer SSDs based on QuantX. Micron did not respond to requests for comment.

But the SSDs will be targeted at enterprises, much like Intel's first large capacity SSD called Optane DC P4800X SSD, which started shipping last week. The 375GB SSD is priced at $1,520.

Internal benchmarks showed the Optane SSD worked up to eight times faster in random read and write than did conventional SSDs. Intel initially hyped the 3D Xpoint technology as being 1,000 times faster than conventional NAND flash, but the company later clarified that applies only at the cell level, not to SSD media like Optane.

Micron has said QuantX-based SSDs would have capacities up to 1.4TB. Those drives would plug into PCI-Express 3.0/NVMe slots.

QuantX installations could look different from Intel's Optane. Micron is aligning with emerging throughput technologies like Gen-Z, which could expand QuantX from x86 to ARM servers. The QuantX storage and memory will also have its own controllers and sit close to the CPU for quick data transfers, cutting potential bottlenecks.



[ Further reading: Micron reveals marketing details about 3D XPoint memory QuantX ]

 

Crazy-priced 1.4TB? I'd rather they introduce 4TB m.2 2280 drives at last, not this disappointing ****. \=

 

I think this revolutionary technology is just begun, and we will see more speeds and capacities along with reduced prices in the future.

 

That's what people said about 10 years ago, and we're not exactly at affordable levels when it comes to 1TB or 2TB SSD's - not unless you're willing to dish out at least £260 to £300 for 1TB... and that's too much for many people (heck, in many cases, even M2 SSD's in capacity of 250gb to 500gb are priced at £150 and £200 - depending on the brand).
HDD's are still about 5x cheaper in comparison.
You can get 8TB 3.5" HDD for the price of 1TB SSD.

So, when exactly will SSD's finally overtake HDD's?
At the artificial price inflation rates we're seeing now, not anytime soon.

Many laptops are finally ditching the optical drive these days (which is a good thing), however, the downside is that if you want SSD and HDD for storage, your only options are regular 2.5" SSD and external HDD... or more expensive M.2 SSD and high capacity HDD.

Notice how most OEM's still ship their laptops with HDD's for the most part.
SSD's aren't really included, or if they are, they usually come in 120GB capacity (which is increasingly becoming insufficient).
The minimum one could get away with today can be 120GB SSD yes, but 256GB would be better if you're gaming and use other software.

I feel as if laptops are (again) at a stage where they were with mobile HDD's 10 years ago (and it's been 10 years already since SSD's were released).
Low capacity SSD's are affordable while higher capacity ones, not so much.

 

Deks, I agree on many of your points.

The price difference between HDD's and SSD's effectively mirrors the usability of a system for someone that actually depends on one.

On sale, a 1TB SSD is still less today than a 60GB HDD (Hitachi Travelstar 7200 RPM) was not that long ago (at intro; I paid $500 gladly for a few samples of those fast platters) - while giving obviously better performance, of course.

Anything less than 500GB capacity is throwaway, as far as SSD's go... On a main system; 1TB is the minimum and 2TB for a single drive is not overkill either, (almost...) regardless of the price.

Low capacity SSD's are not affordable; they're a waste of time and money. And they leave huge performance on the table too.

While I would love to buy SSD's at HDD prices, the reality is that we have to pay what they're worth in the market (as a whole).

If manufacturers can sell at the $1/GB level (meaning people buy them...) they will.

With XPoint coming onto the scene, today's SSD's will go by the way of the HDD (price wise) sooner than later...

Don't forget that SSD's are hovering around the 1960's or early 1970's when compared to their HDD relatives. In other words; they're still a young (consumer) tech. More importantly; up until now, there was no other choice (let alone a better choice).

See:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/127105/article.html

When XPoint SSD's and XPoint DIMM's are actually available and deemed affordable for many; SSD's will be sold for what they're actually worth today (i.e. HDD's prices...).

But, at that point? They won't be worth the raw materials they're made with (to me...) - if XPoint (or something better) lives up to it's promise, by then.

 

EDIT: What Aerospike learned from testing Intel's superfast Optane SSDs - Computerworld.com

 

Dr. AMK, thanks for the link above, good reading.

May I make a suggestion? Please paste the actual URL in future posts. I don't like clicking on links that don't tell me where they're going.

Ty.

 

OK thank you for your kindness, it was too long but I'll do your advice in the future,

EDIT: What Aerospike learned from testing Intel's superfast Optane SSDs - Computerworld.com

Sent from my SM-N920C using Tapatalk

 

You can put it like this also What Aerospike learned from testing Intel's superfast Optane SSDs - Computerworld.com
Aka put in the topic phrase and the web address Mostly will the topic and web address be shorter than the whole url. Aka the post will look cleaner.

Edit: You can as well shorten the topic article name.

 

Done for all links, Thank you

 

Dr. AMK, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

These 'small' changes make for a much better reading experience on the forums.

Thank you not just for making a change I suggested (going forward)... but I also thank you for being open to change (for the better for all, I think).

+REP

 

Thank you for your kindness my friend, regardless that I have a PhD. and doing management consulting for many of the private and government sectors, but I'm here between you guys, is just a student trying to learn from senior members like your kind self, and the student must care and fix any findings found by his seniors.
And I want to say, that my location maybe so far, but really most of the time I feel that I'm living with you guys in the same neighborhood because of the high quality attitude for most of this respected forum members.
And I'll promise that I will "keep going forward" as much as I can, sharing knowledge, supporting any one seeking my help, like what you are all doing, I just need some time to learn.
Regards.

 

Keep up the good work @Dr. AMK

Not about Optane but ssd - ram who is todays tech

Prices of SSDs and RAM will crash in 2019 - PCworld.com

"It’s possible that prices of PC and mobile devices will head back down, which has been the general trend for more than a decade. But some companies may opt for profits rather than pass the savings on to buyers, much like Apple + Dell has done historically."

 

We all hope that the prices will go down within a year or something, 2019 is still so far.

 

By that time, everything has become more expensive Buy when you need to. Otherwise refrain from it. The best advice I can give

 

I have all what I need already, I removed all mechanical hard drives from my life long time ago, will never use it again, any SSD model will fulfill my needs, no matter what speed they have.

 

@Dr. AMK lucky you! I need 8TB storage (and would prefer backup of same size - but that's what HDDs are for). 2x 2.5" 4TB SSDs will cost me over $2000 that I'm not willing to spend on it at the moment, partly because it won't fit into devices I prefer - forcing me to look into cheaper, yet less comfortable and straightforward, alternatives.

 

You can have more than 8TB for backups but outside the laptop, I'm not doing backups or archiving on SSD except for very very important work files, when I said I'm not using regular HD, I meant the one inside the laptop, and for backup I have a NAS solution 16TB with Wi-Fi option.
SSD for me is used for OS, apps, some games some data bases for work which needs speed for it's searching engine,

 

@Dr. AMK of course I can, but I want to have a 8TB storage inside of modern convertible ultrabook - which is currently impossible.

 

The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review - Anandtech.com

"The Optane SSD is ultimately an expensive niche product. If you don't need high throughput random access with the strictest latency requirements, the Optane SSD DC P4800X may not be the best choice"

 

That's 'today'. When Optane RAM becomes available (soonish), SSD's will be shown for the dogs they are.

From your same link:

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-optane-3d-xpoint-p4800x,5030-9.html

And the 'negative' in the second quote above? The 7 core/15W spec'd DC P4800X is being slightly improved (BM 'scores') by a 60W Mangstor MX6300-270TS with an 100 core processor.


This is a niche product today - ground zero - gen 1.

When this tech hits the streets for us normal humans to play with Intel will have fundamentally changed the compute landscape, again.

Today; it has already achieved that for many enterprise customers and already (over half a year...) for it's Super Seven.

 

Correct. Today... All depends on your usage, and the price you have to pay(New tech is always more pricey). But it will be good in the end when prices get more normal and we can opt for sizes for your usage-want.

 

Agreed. But the performance this tech gives 'now' is worth the price it commands.

In both the AnandTech and the Tomshardware reviews, it gives roughly 8-40 times the performance (depending on the metric you're tracking...) at a mere 2x the cost. This is a bargain. Particularly against power intensive versions like the Mangstor which go for a few pennies less per GB of the Intel offering. As for capacity? Patience for a couple of months is all that's needed.

 

Intel Announces DC P4500 And P4600 Series SSDs With 3GB/s Reads For Enterprise - Hothardware.com

"The DC P4500 has been tuned to perform optimally with read-centric workloads, and is rated for three full drive writes per day. The DC P4600 can handle heavier workloads, offers increased endurance and features better QoS under load"

 

I love how the graphs are doubling in less than a year from the S3610 to the P3600 to the P4600... the 4K R/W 70/30 graph is especially impressive.

Performance hasn't stagnated, contrary to the spread of the news of it's death...

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-ssd-p4550-p4600-dc,34301.html

I don't like to use PCIe or U2 based SSD's for my workflows - SATA3 is more than enough for the $$$/power/longevity tradeoffs.

When these spec's come to M.2 (version 3.x) SSD's at (much) greater than ~512GB capacity, that will be great for mere consumers too.

Yeah; I know; these are data center focused products. Doesn't mean we don't need that kind of (read) performance affordably too.

 

Why Did Intel Even Make This? – Optane 800P SSD

 

FAST 12TB Steam Drive for CHEAP!!

 

Will the consumers go for the more expencive Optane disks if ssd's prices vs. Optane gets too big? Or will Intel follow after and drop the prices for Optane as well?
SSD Prices are dropping Significantly
By Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/11/2018 04:55 PM

If you are in the market for an SSD, now might be a good time to be looking at one. I was just performing some checks and you will notice that prices on popular SSDs have dropped significantly. You can find a 500GB Crucial MX500 for 100 euros.

Prices for M.2. NVMe devices seem to be affected as well, above the Samsung SSD 970 EVO 500GB, M.2 In all fairness, Samsung dropped the price right after release. But yeah, it started at over 200 bucks, and now can be spotted in the 160 Euro region. Prices, of course, vary per region and country. But again, if you are in the market for some NAND storage, now might be a good time to look around a bit.