Micron demos its 3D XPoint memory packing QuantX SSDs

[HEXUS]

Reveals that 3D XPoint memory will cost about four to five times more than NAND.

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[shaithis]

That's a FAR cry from the "cheaper than NAND" line they were touting at the end of last year.

Inability to factor costs correctly or taking the industry for a ride?

[badass]

That's a FAR cry from the "cheaper than NAND" line they were touting at the end of last year.

Inability to factor costs correctly or taking the industry for a ride?

Except they weren't. The line was "cheaper than DRAM"

[shaithis]

Except they weren't. The line was "cheaper than DRAM"

How much faster is the 3D XPoint non-volatile memory? Intel and Micron claim it offers an astonishing speed of "up to 1,000 times faster than NAND". Furthermore the new chips are ten times denser than conventional memory, thanks to the 3D structure and transistor-less design. The good news doesn't stop there as Intel and Micron scientists created the new chips to offer 1,000 times the endurance of NAND, lower power usage and to be more economical to produce.

So, they did say that.

Source

[3dcandy]

I'm surprised at the cost to be honest.... but it should still be a good advance in tech

[sykobee]

The cost is the biggest downer here. Effectively DRAM pricing for Storage performance. You could get 200GB of this for the price of 100GB of DRAM - many would go for the DRAM.

Sure, it's a factor of two cheaper than DRAM, and it's an order of magnitude lower latency than SSD (10x, not 1000x faster), but it's still 3 orders of magnitude higher latency than DRAM. Bandwidth wasn't mentioned, but over PCIe it's going to be far lower than DRAM too.

But, every advance starts like this, and then costs come down, densities go up, and performance improves. In 5 years time this may be ready for prosumers!

[whatif]

"Previously Intel has indicated that 3D Xpoint offers up to 10x the density of NAND so the tech will enable smaller, higher capacity storage devices."

OK, given how small storage media is getting - msata and M.2, and how they now have 256GB micro SD cards, so does this mean we will be having large storage devices smaller in size than micro SD cards? That is no good, I have already misplaced a couple of micro SD cards because they are so small. I will end up having to use a magnifying glass when doing a new build in 2020-21. :-)
Hopefully by then the cost will be more consumer friendly.
Laughs aside, that is a good leap forward in development.

[shaithis]

"Previously Intel has indicated that 3D Xpoint offers up to 10x the density of NAND so the tech will enable smaller, higher capacity storage devices."

OK, given how small storage media is getting - msata and M.2, and how they now have 256GB micro SD cards, so does this mean we will be having large storage devices smaller in size than micro SD cards? That is no good, I have already misplaced a couple of micro SD cards because they are so small. I will end up having to use a magnifying glass when doing a new build in 2020-21. :-)
Hopefully by then the cost will be more consumer friendly.
Laughs aside, that is a good leap forward in development.

I actually put unused MicroSD cards in SD card adapters so that they are harder to lose!!

Not looking forward to NanoSD cards

[scaryjim]

I actually put unused MicroSD cards in SD card adapters so that they are harder to lose!! ...

Glad to know I'm not the only one I also have a tiny little USB - MicroSD adapter that I use for the same purpose. It's grand apart from when I'm looking for a specific card and have to take them all out of the adapters to find out what size they are

[mtyson]

PCPer has a picture of the Micron QuantX XPoint prototype SSD. Embedded it below...

[preter_s]

The cost is the biggest downer here. Effectively DRAM pricing for Storage performance. You could get 200GB of this for the price of 100GB of DRAM - many would go for the DRAM.

Sure, it's a factor of two cheaper than DRAM, and it's an order of magnitude lower latency than SSD (10x, not 1000x faster), but it's still 3 orders of magnitude higher latency than DRAM. Bandwidth wasn't mentioned, but over PCIe it's going to be far lower than DRAM too.

Then you're totally missing the point. You belong to the dinosaur era of mechanical harddisks where upgrading any PC means "add RAM".

Based on any workload, there is only so much RAM you need. Adding 100GB of RAM to a PC that only shows 10GB of RAM utilisation (with say 16GB of RAM onboard) does nothing except add cost.

Adding 3D XPoint though increases the speed of the slowest part of the system (i.e. the flash storage) by 1000 times. Bottleneck gone.

Its like when you first upgrade the mechanical harddisk drive of a 2 year old PC with any kind of SSD. Even though everything else remains the same, the thing feels like it flies.

[Xlucine]

Then you're totally missing the point. You belong to the dinosaur era of mechanical harddisks where upgrading any PC means "add RAM".

Based on any workload, there is only so much RAM you need. Adding 100GB of RAM to a PC that only shows 10GB of RAM utilisation (with say 16GB of RAM onboard) does nothing except add cost.

Adding 3D XPoint though increases the speed of the slowest part of the system (i.e. the flash storage) by 1000 times. Bottleneck gone.

Its like when you first upgrade the mechanical harddisk drive of a 2 year old PC with any kind of SSD. Even though everything else remains the same, the thing feels like it flies.

RAM drives are a thing