Intel to Shut Down Optane Memory Business, Retire 3D XPoint Memory

[TheLostSwede]

I believe they hot some technological barriers they couldn't clear.
And yes, nothing will reach those IOPS for quite a while, sorry to see it go.

The obvious issue was scaling. They simply couldn't get it to a point where enough data could be stored at a sensible price per megabyte. Whatever the reason behind this, we're not likely to ever really know.

Also, fanboyism has nothing to do with buying into Optane. Early adopters or tech-enthusiasts were around since forever. Remember when CD-ROM drives were >$1,000? Some people bought those, too.

Try hanging out in the comments sections on some other sites and you would've seen why I mentioned fanbois. There's a group of people that expected Optane to rule the storage product world from servers to portable storage. When Micron threw in the towel, I knew it was over, but that was when the Intel fanbois shifted into overdrive.

As mentioned in my next comment above, I'm not against the technology, but Intel made a lot of terrible products based on it, as they were trying to figure out how to sell it.

It's a shame it came to that. We're not getting consumer grade NAND alternative with superior lifetimes anytime soon, are we?

The stuff Micron just announced should have better life span, but nothing like this.

What a shame. Even as small 100-200gb OS/Program drives they are fantastic products. The 118gb for example can be had for under £100 new. Latency, IOPS, practically infinite endurance etc. Brilliant product killed by economies of scale.

They were a lot more when they launch, so they sat on the shelves collecting dust until Intel had a fire sale. Competitive pricing matters.

 

[bug]

Try hanging out in the comments sections on some other sites and you would've seen why I mentioned fanbois. There's a group of people that expected Optane to rule the storage product world from servers to portable storage. When Micron threw in the towel, I knew it was over, but that was when the Intel fanbois shifted into overdrive.

You can find fanboys for pretty much everything, if you search hard enough. Still, I wouldn't extrapolate from that.
Every new storage technology in the past 50 years has been really expensive at first. So it wasn't entirely out there to expect XPoint to succeed, despite initial pricing. What was unwarranted, was not acknowledging that, being a new piece of tech, it still faced challenges. And challenges are not overcome simply by wishful thinking.
Of course, if the comments you mention were just regurgitating Intel's marketing, that's fanboyism 101.

Fwiw, I rooted for XPoint, wanted to try one, found it too expensive for me and did not assume it will automatically take over the world. I hope that doesn't make me a fanboy. If it does, I was a fanboy of the tech, not of Intel

 

[Chrispy_]

Too expensive/niche even for enterprise?
Shame.

In saying that, I get 6-figure budgets for VDI infrastructure which is hella latency and IOPS sensitive, and even I could never justify the cost of Optane...

 

[bug]

Sigh, capitalism at its finest.

I'm pretty sure you were being sarcastic, but that is actually one of capitalism's strengths: it will not pour resources where there's no RoI.

Having lived under the Iron Curtain, I have witnessed first hard economies being ruined because of resources spent with no regard to returns.

 

[dj-electric]

Using Optane drives as OS drives since they came out (900p then, 905p as of today)

My quick takes:
- Not so much a home user kind of experience, most home users don't do heavy databases
- Performance was bound to be caught up by domestic type drives for most applications, and they did, I think even before gen4 drives became mainstream.
- The extreme endurance of the drive is commendable, but it isn't like you're going to outlast a 1200TBW drive in terms of market relevancy
- The use of U.2 for a consumer grade drive was a mistake. It was needed for the form factor, but created quite an undesirable setup with the M.2 U.2 adapter. Using mine on a PCIe X16 adapter card.

It was a decent run, but if Optane and 3DXPoint drains Intel's money, its better gone than existing.

 

[Wirko]

I believe they hot some technological barriers they couldn't clear.

The obvious issue was scaling. They simply couldn't get it to a point where enough data could be stored at a sensible price per megabyte. Whatever the reason behind this, we're not likely to ever really know.

One of the problems apparently was that they didn't find a way to build layers upon layers upon layers of those green and yellow blocks. So the price per GB remained close to that of dynamic RAM, which also cannot be built in layers with existing technology.

 

[R0H1T]

They should've tried to license it to Sammy, SK Hynix, Toshiba among others! It was clear they had no intentions to grow that market, just wanted to rake in the dough. It's a shame because Optane could've lasted decades & maybe even eventually replaced NAND?

 

[TheLostSwede]

You can find fanboys for pretty much everything, if you search hard enough. Still, I wouldn't extrapolate from that.
Every new storage technology in the past 50 years has been really expensive at first. So it wasn't entirely out there to expect XPoint to succeed, despite initial pricing. What was unwarranted, was not acknowledging that, being a new piece of tech, it still faced challenges. And challenges are not overcome simply by wishful thinking.
Of course, if the comments you mention were just regurgitating Intel's marketing, that's fanboyism 101.

Fwiw, I rooted for XPoint, wanted to try one, found it too expensive for me and did not assume it will automatically take over the world. I hope that doesn't make me a fanboy. If it does, I was a fanboy of the tech, not of Intel

I think a lot if it's had hopes for the technology, but Intel locked out everyone else and made weird products with it.

And no, these people were on an entirely different level. They expected Optane to be the next big thing for Intel that would make Intel kill AMD.

 

[bug]

And no, these people were in an entirely different level. They expected Optane to be the next big thing for Intel that would make Intel kill AMD.

LOL

They should've tried to license it to Sammy, SK Hynix, Toshiba among others! It was clear they had no intentions to grow that market, just wanted to rake in the dough. It's a shame because Optane could've lasted decades & maybe even eventually replaced NAND?

That's an interesting aspect. Licensing per se would have probably been a no-go with such an unfinished product. But collaboration at some level would have certainly been possible. Intel chose to keep the whole pie to themselves instead.

But now I have to ask: what if, based on what is known about the tech (both from Intel and Micron), someone at Samsung, SK Hynix or Toshiba actually manages to build something viable in 5-10 years?

 

[ZoneDymo]

I'm pretty sure you were being sarcastic, but that is actually one of capitalism's strengths: it will not pour resources where there's no RoI.

Having lived under the Iron Curtain, I have witnessed first hard economies being ruined because of resources spent with no regard to returns.

I am actually not being sarcastic, I think HUGE companies like Intel and Google should continue on good efforts and development evne if there is no massive profit to be had, its capatalism and publicly traded companies that forces the constant push for MORE profit, not just profit, MORE PROFIT which means cool tech like this (or in google's case Google Fiber and Stadia to name a few) just get axed off as they dont fit that course of action.

But these companies can EASILY carry it with all the profit they make elsewhere and provide the world with useful tech.

But no, its all endgame profit driven which imo is beyond sad, its damaging.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

I am actually not being sarcastic, I think HUGE companies like Intel and Google should continue on good efforts and development evne if there is no massive profit to be had, its capatalism and publicly traded companies that forces the constant push for MORE profit, not just profit, MORE PROFIT which means cool tech like this (or in google's case Google Fiber and Stadia to name a few) just get axed off as they dont fit that course of action.

But these companies can EASILY carry it with all the profit they make elsewhere and provide the world with useful tech.

But no, its all endgame profit driven which imo is beyond sad, its damaging.

You are not considering opportunity cost.

Resources they'd spend pouring into expensive technologies without ROI can be spent on technologies that DO have ROI. That means more funds for creating jobs and further R&D.

 

[bug]

I am actually not being sarcastic, I think HUGE companies like Intel and Google should continue on good efforts and development evne if there is no massive profit to be had, its capatalism and publicly traded companies that forces the constant push for MORE profit, not just profit, MORE PROFIT which means cool tech like this (or in google's case Google Fiber and Stadia to name a few) just get axed off as they dont fit that course of action.

But these companies can EASILY carry it with all the profit they make elsewhere and provide the world with useful tech.

But no, its all endgame profit driven which imo is beyond sad, its damaging.

Well, if you put it that way... I'm sure they would agree to spend their money as you want, as soon as you agree to spend your money they way they want.

 

[R0H1T]

But these companies can EASILY carry it with all the profit they make elsewhere and provide the world with useful tech.

But no, its all endgame profit driven which imo is beyond sad, its damaging.

Yes I'd rather not choose between unchecked capitalism & the worst of "Socialism" but we do live in a world where we don't really have a choice ~ being greedy is a choice though, like these corporate thugs have proven over & over again!

 

[randomUser]

Yet so many fanbois investing in it, because Intel.
It's obviously superior in terms of IOPS compared to current NAND based flash, but at 3-4x the cost, it's just not going to sell.
Personally I believe Intel messed up by pushing it for caching as well, no-one really asked for that.

Not only cost, but
P900 series, idle power 6W, active power 16,4W. Thank you - no.

 

[bug]

Yes I'd rather not choose between unchecked capitalism & the worst of "Socialism" but we do live in a world where we don't really have a choice ~ being greedy is a choice though, like these corporate thugs have proven over & over again!

Being greedy today is what allows you to stay in the business and be greedy tomorrow.

Greed is a natural, powerful motivator. It's less costly to work with it, than it is to work against it. Greed is also relative (e.g. someone from a 3rd world country would easily find a number of things you are being greedy about).

 

[phanbuey]

Well looking at their financials I won't be surprised if they have to spin off their fabs as well, that chips subsidy can't come soon enough!

Yes that 15 Billion dollars they made last quarter is really concerning. They will really need to spin off those fabs...

 

[bug]

Yes that 15 Billion dollars they made last quarter is really concerning. They will really need to spin off those fabs...

Remembers me of when I was making $15bn a year... Oh wait, it doesn't

 

[JAB Creations]

Well looking at their financials I won't be surprised if they have to spin off their fabs as well, that chips subsidy can't come soon enough!

Because Intel's $43 billion in profits in 2021 is forcing their CEO to sleep on a dirty mattress in a dark alley.

Where were you able to get such potent drugs?

 

[Denver]

This was one of the few intel products I had any interest in. Sad end...

 

[P4-630]

Too bad it was never meant for the average consumer, especially pricewise.

 

[Telstar]

I have windows installed on my 260GB Optane SSD, and that's the best part of my current rig.
It will be missed.

Too bad it was never meant for the average consumer, especially pricewise.

"Consumers" have spent way more for less useful things, especially in the last 2 years.

 

[R0H1T]

Yes that 15 Billion dollars they made last quarter is really concerning. They will really need to spin off those fabs...

I guess you should tell that to the CEO then & the ones who released this quarter's earing, or projected a $10(?) billion drop over the entire year than previous estimates?

Because Intel's $43 billion in profits in 2021 is forcing their CEO to sleep on a dirty mattress in a dark alley.

So you think a 20% drop in margins is normal, even for Chipzilla

And the net loss?

And this isn't just an Intel vs AMD battle anymore, it's ARM & its licensees who are hitting them the hardest! Starting with Apple & now Amazon ~

Amazon Graviton3 vs. Intel Xeon vs. AMD EPYC Performance Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

A lot of posters here are simply ignoring how bad Intel has been over the last decade or so!

someone from a 3rd world country would easily find a number of things you are being greedy about

More third world than India? Or maybe you're referring some of the Sub Saharan African nations or Latin America?

Being greedy today is what allows you to stay in the business and be greedy tomorrow.

Being (always) greedy is also why the planet is turning into a $hit hole now!

Greedy is fine as long as you don't put the rest of us in a ditch!

But let's just pretend that corporate greed isn't as bad as "Socialism"

I have said this in the past that I don't like to compare (scale of) tragedies but you're making it look like one is much worse than the other, IMO they're both really bad!

Bhopal disaster - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[samum]

I follow a lot of tech news, and I could never figure out what Optane was supposed to do, I just knew it was stupid expensive.

 

[phanbuey]

But let's just pretend that corporate greed isn't as bad as "Socialism"

It's exactly the same greed just owned by government and hidden (and called corruption) instead of companies. That's why all the govt officials in socialist countries live like nobility while everyone else suffers.

 

[MarsM4N]

Way too expensive, minor real world benefits. Guess not even the money throwing companies where interested in their tech.

Well, and there is this:

"Since the summer of 2021, Intel has also been missing a manufacturer for the 3D Xpoint memory chips: At that time, the former development and manufacturing partner Micron sold its semiconductor plant in the US state of Utah to the automotive chip manufacturer Texas Instruments (TI) , which then installed the only compatible production lines surrounded. According to the information from Blocks & Files, Intel recently served the low demand for Optane products exclusively from existing inventories, which corresponds to the depreciation amount of 559 million US dollars." Source: Heise.de