During the event Memory and Storage 2020 , Intel unveiled six new storage products . We are facing the first big announcements since the US company announced the sale of the storage division to SK hynix. We must not forget that it will be a not rapid “posting”, but it will take several years: for this reason the division will continue to work “as if nothing had happened” even during the transition period.

Optane SSD P 5800 X : a very fast SSD for datacenter

To stand out among the news is undoubtedly Optane SSD P 5800 X , defined as “the fastest data center SSD in the world” : with interface PCI Express 4.0 x4 , a new controller and the second generation 3D XPoint memory , offers three times higher performance compared to the previous generation Optane SSD DC P 4800 X.

More precisely, P 5800 X reaches 1.5 million IOPS with cas loads which 4K and sequential performance of peak equal to 7.2 GB / s . The unit is also capable of achieving performance with random loads 400 B up to 4.6 million IOPS and ensure a maximum of 1.8 million IOPS with mixed loads. The new P 5800 X is also capable of a write resistance up to 67% higher than P 4800 X, consequently touching a peak of 100 drive writes per day (DWPD) .

However, these are just some of the capabilities of this very interesting product for datacenters. Intel has improved the SSD’s quality of service (QoS) over the previous model and worked to ensure consistent performance even under very heavy loads. The P 5800 X is capable of sustaining a very high load throughput of 8GB / s. Furthermore, the new SSD ensures a latency of only 66 us.

Optane SSD P 5800 X is also able to take advantage of the bi-directionality of PCI Express, which is very useful in mixed workloads. In a scenario with reads and writes respectively at 70% is 19%, the SSD is capable of touching 2 million IOPS, 3.7 times higher than the previous generation model.

Intel has not yet released information on pricing or availability , but has announced that the new Optane will be available in the form factor U.2 with capacity of 400 GB, 800 GB, 1.6TB and 3.2TB. It is plausible that the new Optane SS DP 5800 X arrives on the market together with the new Intel Ice Lake server platform, the first to support PCIe 4.0 , expected in the first quarter 2021. Obviously the SSD can be installed without any problem even on systems based on AMD EPYC CPU.

Optane Memory H 20 for reactive notebooks

Still within the Optane family, but very different than the P 5800 X, it is the new Optane Memory H 20: it is a SSD in M.2 format that matches 3D NAND QLC to 144 3D XPoint memory layer managed by a renewed controller. Evolution of model H 10, fuses the storage capacity of NAND with the speed and low latencies of 3D XPoint, so as to allow notebook manufacturers (will not be sold in stores) to make responsive, fast and light products.

The debut of Optane Memory H 20 is expected for Q2 2021 in two versions with 512 GB or 1 TB of 3D NAND flanked by 32 GB of 3D XPoint memory . Optane Memory 20 is accompanied by a PCI Expres 3.0 interface and we will find it on board products with Intel Core CPU of 11 th generation of the U series and series chipset 350.

SSD D7-P 5510 and D5-P 5316, 3D NAND a 144 layer for datacenters

Intel has renewed the patrol of SSD for datacenter with new solutions based on 3D NAND memory a 144 layer , of the TLC type in the case of the D7 and in the QLC meaning in that of the D5. However, the two share the same controller and support PCI Express 4.0. The D7-P 5510 is presented in U.2 format with capacity of 3, 84 and 7, 68 TB , but also a series of specific news for the world of the cloud and virtualized environments. It will be available by the end of the year, obviously only for companies in the sector.

Model D5-P 5316 will arrive instead in the first half of next year with the aim of taking the place of hard drives. Available in capacities of 15, 36 is 30, 72 TB, the new SSD with 3D NAND QLC memory will be available in U.2 and E1.L formats (in quest ‘last case will allow you to insert 1 petabyte of storage in a 1U rack).

Intel SSD 670 p, QLC memory to 144 layer the consumer area

In the first quarter of next year Intel will introduce the SSD 670 p, a consumer model characterized by a new controller compared to the previous solutions and from the memory 3D NAND QLC to 144 layer . Also in this case it is a SSD M.2 PCIe 3.0 , which will come in capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB . Price and performance will be shared by Intel near the debut, but the company has made it known that it has made some changes regarding the functioning of the dynamic SLC cache.

In practice, while the maximum and minimum sizes will not change from the past, Intel has succeeded in improve available cache size when drive is partially full : a 670 p with half the capacity occupied will have almost the maximum size of the SLC cache available. Furthermore, the minimum size will not be reached until the drive is full at the 85%. A change that should be useful to sustain performance in some situations where short and fast writes are required.

Optane Persistent Memory, “Crow Pass” is coming

Finally, Intel also talked about the future of Optane Persistent Memory , i.e. the memory modules that fit into the classic DIMM slots of the DRAMs but, unlike the latter, are able to store much more data and keep them even in the absence of energy. Intel has made it known that after the proposals of the series 200, codenamed Barlow Pass, it will be up to the “Crow Pass” generation to support future Xeon “Sapphire Rapids” processors . There will therefore most likely be a major change in terms of the interface, as future CPUs will support DDR5 memory.