The memory technology developed jointly by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) dubbed 3D Xpoint has been launched after being initially announced almost two years ago. Products developed by Intel using this technology will be called Optane while those made by Micron will use a different name.
One such product that has been developed using this technology is the Optane SSD DC 4800X. The Optane SSD DC 4800X will possess a storage capacity of 375GB and will cost $1,520. There will be other models with higher capacity that will be introduced later in the year. The workloads for which the Optane SSD DC 4800X is targeted include those that enjoy low latency and those which also enjoy high responsiveness while under load.
Low queue depths
According to Intel, speeds of 2Gbps can be achieved by the drive even with low queue depths. This is in contrast to SSDs that are flash-based which function optimally when the queue depths are 32 or more. The Optane SSD DC 4800X also has a high endurance rate as random reads and write can occur at a high volume without there being the danger of compromise. Specifically, the endurance level of the Optane SSD DC 4800X is 30 drive-writes a day. This means that a total of 12.3 petabytes can be written in a single day.
Memory-cum-storage
Besides the hardware, Intel also launched the Memory Drive Technology that allows a computer’s operating system to view the Optane SSD DC 4800X as RAM as opposed to storage space. The benefit of this is that a system is able to address more memory than initially designed for with the only cost being the latency increasing slightly.
According to the giant chipmaker, the new drive technology would allow giant data sets like what would be found in big data analytics, scientific simulations or machine learning to be kept in memory pools with low latency where they can be accessed at lightning speeds. This would also translate into lower costs than would be case if the RAM were separate.
On Monday shares of Intel Corporation edged up by 0.45% to close the day at $35.43 a share.
