Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on July 28, 2022 9:00 pm wrote:
> Wes Felter (wmf.delete@this.felter.org) on July 28, 2022 7:53 pm wrote:
> > Intel To Wind Down Optane Memory Business - 3D XPoint Storage Tech Reaches Its End
> >
> > Even though it never lived up to Intel's promises I'm not aware of any
> > alternative persistent memory tech. I guess that whole field is over.
>
>
> Few are going to miss it, or even notice it is gone.
>
> The supposed allure of Optane was that it provided storage that was cheaper per bit
> than DRAM while being faster in terms of IOPS than flash. The problem is flash's performance
> improved a lot faster than Optane's, while DRAM's per bit cost maintained roughly the
> same ratio, so Optane's already small niche narrowed further over time.

That's not quite correct. It's both higher bandwidth and lower latency. You are right that flash bandwidth has increased, but latency hasn't gotten better.

> The only real advantage it had was as "byte addressable flash" when used in a DIMM form factor,
> but that's really of limited utility. Most people have no desire for their RAM to be unchanged
> when they reboot their system, they just want RAM that's protected against power loss.

Latency, latency, latency.

David