Intel Optane SSD 800P Review: A Speedy M.2 Solid State Drive With 3D XPoint For The Masses

Name: Optane SSD 800P
Brand: Optane

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, March 08, 2018, 12:30 PM EDT

We were lucky enough to get out hands on a couple of Intel Optane SSD 800P 118GB drives for some RAID testing. If the comparatively low sequential transfer speeds of a single 800P aren’t high enough for you, despite their strong random / mixed workload low queue depth performance, putting a couple of the drives in a RAID 0 array could be an ideal solution. Because the Optane drives are also so resilient, RAIDing a couple of them is attractive – you end up with a higher ultimate capacity (if you use RAID 0) with improved sequential transfers as well.

Configuring a couple of Optane SSD 800P series drives in RAID 0 resulted in a significant boost in overall bandwidth according the PCMark Storage benchmark. The drives' overall score increases as well, which puts the configuration just behind the Optane SSD 900P.

Sequential transfers and 4K QD8 reads improve significantly as well, and put the Optane SSD 800P performance at or near the head of the pack. Lower queue depth 4K transfers dropped, however, but at still way out in front of NAND-based SSDs in the read test.

Putting a couple of Optane SSD 800P drives in RAID 0 essentially doubled their performance according to SANDRA as well.

Tags: Intel, SSD, Storage, solid state, m.2, optane, 3d-xpoint

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com