Only a week after announcing its Optane Enterprise SSDs Intel has launched m.2-format Optane SSDs for end users. It appears that we are at the onset of an Optane surge.
These SSDs communicate over the PCIe bus bringing more of the 3D XPoint’s performance to the user than would a SATA interface.
Pricing is $44 for a 16GB module and $77 for 32GB. That’s $2.75 and $2.40 (respectively) per gigabyte, or about half the price of DRAM. Intel says that these products will ship on April 24.
What’s most interesting about Intel’s Optane pitch is that the company appears to be telling the world that SSDs are no longer important with its use of the slogan: “Get the speed, keep the capacity.” This message is designed to directly address the quandary that faces PC buyers when considering an SSD: Do they want an SSD’s speed so much that they are willing to accept either Continue reading “Intel Pits Optane SSDs Against NAND SSDs”