Explain Intel Optane please

Berton · Feb 3, 2022

Winuser said:
Just a thought! Have you checked in Disk Management to see if the laptop has another drive that doesn't have an assigned drive letter?

The only possibility I see large enough is the 16GB Recovery partition but nothing strange shows when totalling the partitions sizes. Maybe the formatting is taking about 10% of the total of 256GB??

Update, I just used GPARTED [GNOME Partition Editor] bootable LiveUSB to verify what Win11 is showing.

Winuser · Feb 3, 2022

Berton said:
The only possibility I see large enough is the 16GB Recovery partition but nothing strange shows when totalling the partitions sizes. Maybe the formatting is taking about 10% of the total of 256GB??

View attachment 20658

Update, I just used GPARTED [GNOME Partition Editor] bootable LiveUSB to verify what Win11 is showing.

The 16.43 GB partition is probably the Dell recovery partition.

Berton · Feb 3, 2022

Winuser said:
The 16.43 GB partition is probably the Dell recovery partition.

That's the conclusion I came to.

Winuser · Feb 3, 2022

I have Minitool Partition Wizard Pro installed and I can explore the partitions. I don't know if the free version has that option or not.

DigitalGoat · Feb 3, 2022

There are two types of consumer Optane systems, the 16 or 32Gb Optane module and the onboard Optane (H10 for example). The thing that makes Optane so good as a cache drive apart from the caching algorithms is the 3DXpoint memory architecture used which has extremely low latency compared to traditional NAND.
The Optane module (whether standalone or combined) needs BIOS support and driver support to operate.
The 16 and 32Gb modules occupy a physical NVME slot on the motherboard and use a gen 3 x2 connection. They can be used as traditional (although small) NVME drives (I used mine as a small Linux boot drive and a later as a Macrium boot drive while experimenting).
The important thing with the cache modules (standalone) is that they need to be paired with another drive in a hybrid RAID array to function as intended, they also copy and remap certain Windows boot files to the Optane module to speed up boot times and Windows loading, hence the reason defrag is disabled on the array.
They also store configuration settings on non allocated space at the end of the system drive, so removing either the Optane module or the accelerated drive will break the boot process. You should always use the Utility app to disable Optane before making changes as this unpairs the devices (drives) and remaps files back to their original locations, similar to removing drives from a normal RAID array.
Intel used to recommend disabling Optane before making system images for data integrity, whether this advice has changed with Macrium and others having support for the technology, I am unaware as I haven't kept up with it.
The other type of Optane acceleration is the onboard type, physically based on the target NVME drive such as the H10 series (I believe there is/ was a HDD version as well), mainly designed for notebooks and laptops for it's low profile and reduced slot need.
The enterprise Optane drives are completely different beasts using the same/ similar memory technology and are typically very highly priced for low capacity drives, their strength again, is the low latencies achievable.
Further reading:

Intel® Optane™ Memory H10 with Solid State Storage

FJRMarty · Feb 3, 2022

My 6 week old W11 Dell i5 has a NVMe BC711_NVMe_SK hynix 512GB. A while back I noted the Optane software was installed, but not useful for any reason that I could determine.

And, I noticed my BIOS is configured for a RAID setup, but my Inspiron i5 motherboard only has one SSD card slot, so not sure about that. The Dell Inspiron i7 (which I had for a few weeks 2 months ago) apparently comes with 2 SSD card slots, so I understand that having RAID ability in BIOS. Not sure why mine is defaulting to RAID, or even why it was configured for that, unless it is the Dell one-size-is-cheaper approach. However, I don't mess with BIOS, it's working fine, so I don't care.

Sometimes maybe stuff is just along for the ride.

HTH

Hazel123 · Feb 3, 2022

DigitalGoat said:
There are two types of consumer Optane systems, the 16 or 32Gb Optane module and the onboard Optane (H10 for example). The thing that makes Optane so good as a cache drive apart from the caching algorithms is the 3DXpoint memory architecture used which has extremely low latency compared to traditional NAND.
The Optane module (whether standalone or combined) needs BIOS support and driver support to operate.
The 16 and 32Gb modules occupy a physical NVME slot on the motherboard and use a gen 3 x2 connection. They can be used as traditional (although small) NVME drives (I used mine as a small Linux boot drive and a later as a Macrium boot drive while experimenting).
The important thing with the cache modules (standalone) is that they need to be paired with another drive in a hybrid RAID array to function as intended, they also copy and remap certain Windows boot files to the Optane module to speed up boot times and Windows loading, hence the reason defrag is disabled on the array.
They also store configuration settings on non allocated space at the end of the system drive, so removing either the Optane module or the accelerated drive will break the boot process. You should always use the Utility app to disable Optane before making changes as this unpairs the devices (drives) and remaps files back to their original locations, similar to removing drives from a normal RAID array.
Intel used to recommend disabling Optane before making system images for data integrity, whether this advice has changed with Macrium and others having support for the technology, I am unaware as I haven't kept up with it.
The other type of Optane acceleration is the onboard type, physically based on the target NVME drive such as the H10 series (I believe there is/ was a HDD version as well), mainly designed for notebooks and laptops for it's low profile and reduced slot need.
The enterprise Optane drives are completely different beasts using the same/ similar memory technology and are typically very highly priced for low capacity drives, their strength again, is the low latencies achievable.
Further reading:

Intel® Optane™ Memory H10 with Solid State Storage

That's answered my question about system images. I did an image without disabling optane, so I'm wondering if its usable now.

My other thought was - if optane memory is volatile (remembers things, unlike ram) then what about antivirus scanning? The type where you need to do a root scan for a rootkit or whatever (not that I've ever had one). The type of virus that can sit and be relaunched at boot up every time. So would antivirus miss that if it's remembered in the optane memory module?

I did once have to clean up someone else's computer when they had a bios virus and used kaspersky rescue disk - but with volatile memory, would that work?

DigitalGoat · Feb 3, 2022

Optane is non-volatile, meaning it retains data even when powered off.
The Optane module is seen as part of the accelerated drive (hence the pairing and the drive is reported as an SSD, even if it is a HDD that is paired) so any virus checker will scan the files on the combined drive, in effect not seeing two separate devices, as the Intel driver reports one drive to the OS, same as with a RAID setup.
Your system image may work, even though Optane remaps certain system files to speed up boot and access, the originals remain in place.
The most important thing to take account of is that the Optane enabled system works like a RAID setup, it can be catastrophically broken if devices are removed without following the proper procedure, leading to unusable hardware and complete data loss.
I have not kept up on the technology for a couple of years, nor with imaging apps support for Optane enabled systems. If you are making system images you really should be testing that they work, otherwise it is too late when you need the image and it fails to restore.
Most imaging apps provide a method for verifying an image at creation and after creation (for verifying the integrity of stored images).
Never take for granted that an image is good.
If you intend to continue using Optane (and my personal opinion is that it is a waste of a slot unless you need it for a spinner type hard disk) then you really should check the Intel support site and forums for answers to your questions concerning long term use/ reliance and 3rd party support.

Edit:
If your Optane is the onboard type (Optane on the NVME) then the pairing is part of the drive, such as the H10 series, the 16 and 32Gb Optane modules are designed for desktop use really and are physical cache drives that can be removed/ replaced.
The two types work in similar ways, but are physically different in implementation and in the way the driver and utility software work.

Hazel123 · Feb 3, 2022

Yes mine is the ssd with optane - pre installed in a laptop. I assume it's an H10 - in device manager the drive is described as Intel Optane+477GBSSD.

So would that still need optane turning off to do a system image then?

Hazel123 · Feb 3, 2022

"Yes, you should always disable Optane before performing a Clone or System Image. Then you would re-enable after using either the clone or system image."

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/cloning-hard-drive-on-a-system-with-optane-memory/5d84e6e1-0d34-4a0d-aae2-28c521d165e9

DigitalGoat · Feb 3, 2022

I would always advise turning off Optane acceleration if possible when creating a system image, cloning a drive and disabling/ enabling/ installing existing/ new drivers.
Anything that could possibly cause the system to become unbootable (such as updating chipset drivers, GPU drivers) I would temporarily disable Optane caching until I was certain my changes were not going to cause major issues.
The main reason for my advice of caution is that an image made with Optane off can be restored to a system where Optane has been removed/ failed etc, an image made with Optane on would necessitate being restored to the same system configuration and may fail if Optane is no longer present on that system for any reason.

Hazel123 · Feb 3, 2022

Thank you for explaining that. The more I hear, the more I am inclined to replace the drive with a 1tb standard nvme as I need more storage anyway. I had considered replacing it with a 1tb H10 as the optane does seem to speed things up. But don't want hassles.

DigitalGoat · Feb 3, 2022

A decent TLC NAND NVME with a dedicated cache would perform as well as, if not better than the Optane drive.
Consumer Optane came out at a time when SSD's were generally more expensive, as a way to accelerate HDD access times relatively cheaply, giving good response times, coupled with large storage capacities.
Shortly after its release though the price of large SSDs came down to affordable levels, so it became one of those short lived and out paced solutions.
OEMs like to include them still because it sounds techy and gives some advertising punch (visually speaking), there is still a case to be made for the drives when paired with large relatively slow HDDs and for cost cutting/ using up old stock, but any decent 1Tb NVME should out perform an Optane cache or at least match it, without the need for hybrid RAID thrown into the mix.
When looking for replacement drives pretty much ignore the sequential read/ write speeds unless you are transferring lots of huge files daily, instead look for the IOPs/ Random access performance, especially if thinking of using it as a boot drive as the boot process involves accessing lots of smaller files randomly rather than large sequential reads. IMHO. :)

barman58 · Feb 4, 2022

I have only ever used them for data HDD buffering, where it does give an improvement, and does not risk issues that can appear when they are used for boot drives.
It makes logical sense to utilise conventional hard disks for major data storage, on a simple "Bang per buck" basis. Using Optane memory to improve data transmission speeds, especially when using M2 NVMe drives for system drives. In my case I also use SSD drives for database data and temporary storage which speeds up the overall data transfer speed

Hazel123 · Feb 4, 2022

Thanks. I'm quite happy with this Optane SSD but don't want the hassle of things possibly going wrong in the future or failed system images! I've ordered a Samsung Evo 970 plus 1tb. It's a difficult one, as I know that will perform well but I may lose the virtually instant start up I have at the moment and the incredible speediness doing general tasks. It is an i5 processor but behaves like an i7. But I need the extra storage anyway and the 1tb H10 is more expensive (available but not many places).

Annoyingly I could have got the samsung for £95 the other day on Amazon and it's now £101.

Hazel123 · Feb 4, 2022

DigitalGoat said:
A decent TLC NAND NVME with a dedicated cache would perform as well as, if not better than the Optane drive.
Consumer Optane came out at a time when SSD's were generally more expensive, as a way to accelerate HDD access times relatively cheaply, giving good response times, coupled with large storage capacities.
Shortly after its release though the price of large SSDs came down to affordable levels, so it became one of those short lived and out paced solutions.
OEMs like to include them still because it sounds techy and gives some advertising punch (visually speaking), there is still a case to be made for the drives when paired with large relatively slow HDDs and for cost cutting/ using up old stock, but any decent 1Tb NVME should out perform an Optane cache or at least match it, without the need for hybrid RAID thrown into the mix.
When looking for replacement drives pretty much ignore the sequential read/ write speeds unless you are transferring lots of huge files daily, instead look for the IOPs/ Random access performance, especially if thinking of using it as a boot drive as the boot process involves accessing lots of smaller files randomly rather than large sequential reads. IMHO. :)

A question I asked earlier that you may know about. Could I use the removed Optane drive in another computer? If I install the IRST driver and software? If it was 7th generation and above. As have an HP Spectre X360 with only a 250gb drive (the optane one is 500gb).

DigitalGoat · Feb 4, 2022

Hazel123 said:
A question I asked earlier that you may know about. Could I use the removed Optane drive in another computer? If I install the IRST driver and software? If it was 7th generation and above. As have an HP Spectre X360 with only a 250gb drive (the optane one is 500gb).

In theory yes, but you need the BIOS support for it as well as the correct gen of CPU and the drivers (at least to use it as an Optane enabled drive), it might be possible to use it just as a simple 500Gb NVME but performance may suffer (still better than a spinner type disk on the whole).
Check the Intel product page to see if the drive uses a Gen3 x2 or Gen3 x4 NVME connection, most standard NVME drives are Gen3 x4 (excluding the newer Gen4 and Gen5), the Intel support forums may well have the exact same question from other owners, or HP's forums.

Berton · Feb 4, 2022

FJRMarty said:
My 6 week old W11 Dell i5 has a NVMe BC711_NVMe_SK hynix 512GB. A while back I noted the Optane software was installed, but not useful for any reason that I could determine.

And, I noticed my BIOS is configured for a RAID setup, but my Inspiron i5 motherboard only has one SSD card slot, so not sure about that. The Dell Inspiron i7 (which I had for a few weeks 2 months ago) apparently comes with 2 SSD card slots, so I understand that having RAID ability in BIOS. Not sure why mine is defaulting to RAID, or even why it was configured for that, unless it is the Dell one-size-is-cheaper approach. However, I don't mess with BIOS, it's working fine, so I don't care.

Sometimes maybe stuff is just along for the ride.

HTH

That RAID part was also the way my Vostro 14 came on Oct.15, if trying to set the BIOS to AHCI Windows wouldn't boot.

Hazel123 · Feb 4, 2022

DigitalGoat said:
In theory yes, but you need the BIOS support for it as well as the correct gen of CPU and the drivers (at least to use it as an Optane enabled drive), it might be possible to use it just as a simple 500Gb NVME but performance may suffer (still better than a spinner type disk on the whole).
Check the Intel product page to see if the drive uses a Gen3 x2 or Gen3 x4 NVME connection, most standard NVME drives are Gen3 x4 (excluding the newer Gen4 and Gen5), the Intel support forums may well have the exact same question from other owners, or HP's forums.

Speccy just says this

Hazel123 · Feb 4, 2022

So I just tried disabling it (needs a restart). And it does make a difference. It's ok without it but lightning fast with it! Hmm. I think I would miss it. Read a lot of positive things - but also the issues people have had at times.