Intel Outs Optane Storage That’s Upto 8x Faster than Any SSD

Conventional SSDs are usually considered by most to be the fastest storage devices but a new kid on the block is set to challenge them for the throne in a very meaningful way.

We have been hearing about Intel’s NVM-based 3D XPoint Optane SSD for a while but they are finally shipping to end users now.

For now, at least, that’ll predominantly comprise the enterprise sector and data centers, and for good reason. The 375 GB version of the SSD, dubbed the Optane SSD DC P4800X, retails for $1520, meaning it can be tough to find it in your local hardware store.

More than 2 GB/s Read and Write Speeds

But the price difference should be more than accounted for due to the stratospheric speeds these drives can achieve. The Optane SSDs will roughly offer 2.5 GB/s of sustained output and has ten times lower the latency of a normal SSD. The Optane recorded sequential reading and writing speeds of 2400 MB/s and 2000 MB/s, respectively.

Overall, Intel claims that the storage will be 7-8 times faster compared to regular SSDs in the market, a figure which could be even higher if it wasn’t being used for existing hardware in the market.

The storage can also be used as RAM if the user requires it to, seating it in the PCIe slot of your PC. The performance, when used as RAM, will be equal to about 80% of fastest RAMs on the market.

Much More Durable Than Conventional SSDs

Having been in the making for a long time, the Optane SSDs feature a 3D stacked design of memory cells, using only digital charge and no transistors.

It retains its storage even while its powered off and can write up to 12.3 petabytes of data in a lifetime. It has ten times the density of DRAM and the same level of latency. Compared to NAND storage, it is 1000 times faster and features endurance by a similar measure.

Intel plans to launch multiple storage variants, including 750 GB and 1.5 TB versions, as well as 750 GB and 1.5 TB U.2 versions in the market. After a while, there’ll be modules featuring separate DRAM as well.

While Intel’s 3D XPoint is going to be the fastest storage around, it won’t hit the mainstream and challenge SSDs any time soon. Once it does, you can count on it to be the best one around in terms of performance.


  • 1000 Times faster than NAND? with rated speed of write at 2400MB/s and read at 2000MB/s. Are you kidding me? Samsung Evo 960 is at same speed, how come it’s 1000 times faster?

    • Samsung Evo is consumer product while this optane is enterprise.
      I think OP means when tested as a “Dram usage” its 1000 times faster than SSD on same usage.
      you cant compare the two, plus don’t get serious over this homework style article from a (student) who possibly don’t know a thing yet wrote because he got excited.

      • The consumer product is even worse, 1200MB sequential reads and 250MB sequential writes, making it even worse than a standard SSD with average write speed of 480MB/s, only advantage I see is Endurance & latency, nothing else so far. Could only be used for drive caching for those who are on old platter drives.

        • you’re missing the point!
          the is no consumer product alone this Enterprise product is still a hidden prototype.
          anyone more interested should look into details of micron documents.
          ps: look at Tom’s hardware for details (sort off) for the technical Superiority​. (remember its optane what we are looking at, not other intel Enterprise ssds)

  • Intel Outs…………………………….. nothing, shipping to end-users…. hilarious.
    this is still a test product that still has suggested retail price. I’ve reading about this since 2015!
    this product is still in labs hidden from anyone and only be allowed for few to test remotely.


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