Intel Kills Off All Optane-Only SSDs for Consumers

Well, this is interesting, and yet, not much of a surprise.  According to this article at Toms (and other places around the web) Intel is killing off the Optane-Only SSDs, at least for the consumer market.

Optane was that technology that hardware reviewers never really talked about because nobody could ever figure out what it was for.  Basically, it was a caching drive to help speed up your PC but, if you were already running NVMe SSDs or had fast SATA based SSDs the performance gains were basically nothing.

So, why would people be upset that Intel is killing a technology that nobody needs?  Well, seems the drives were actually pretty fast when used as a drive. (or so I am led to believe)

Intel's discontinuation notices are quite clear that the company will no longer offer Optane-only drives for desktop PCs, but we followed up for further clarity. Intel responded to our question, 'Does that mean Intel has effectively ended its Optane-only product lines for consumers?' 

"Your statement is technically correct, but consumers do benefit from Optane based-solutions like the Intel Optane Memory H20, since it is for mobile consumer." - Intel representative. 

As noted in the article below, the Optane Memory H20 is a Flash+Optane module that doesn't offer comparable performance to the Optane-only drives for the desktop PC. The H20 is only compatible with mobile 11th-gen Core U-series chips or later, and not with desktop PCs. Intel's statement also clarifies that those drives are destined for mobile applications, marking the end of Optane solutions for desktop PCs. ~ Toms Hardware

Intel kills off technology for various reasons and this is one I will not lose any sleep over.

Related Web URL: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-kills-off-...