I forgot to make a video about this $150,000 server

we just kicked off Spring cleaning at

our studio which wouldn't normally be a

video except we came across this a

$15,000 server with two CPUs eight ssds

and a whopping

6.3 terabytes of ram when we got this

from Intel 3 years ago we did a quick

unboxing promising a deeper dive into

some of its more exotic features and

then promptly forgot about it well that

Ram I showed you guys is is n Ram at all

but optain persistent memory modules you

might know that Intel's optain business

was sadly shuttered in June of 2022

which means the contacts who originally

sent us this have sadly moved on we on

the other hand haven't so all these

years later I am finally going to do

what I said I was going to do and finish

building the rer piece I mean sorry I

mean digging into what made optain so

special and cool and

what ultimately killed it just like I'm

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before we go any further some of you

probably need a refresher isn't Intel

optain and SSD what's it doing in a ram

slot well optane was more of a family

than an individual product ranging from

inexpensive hard drive accelerators for

pre-builts where the manufacturer was

too cheap to install a real SSD to

incredibly low latency not to mention

expensive storage for the fastest

servers in existence what all of these

uses had in common though was they

looked like conventional memory and

storage devices but functioned somewhere

in between and that's exactly what we're

looking at here this appears to be a

normal SSD but the 3D Cross Point chips

inside it have just 100th the latency of

regular Nan flash as for this guy well

it looks like a stick of ddr4 memory but

it's actually an Intel optain persistent

memory series 100 module with a whopping

512 gigs of storage on it and this

server has 12 of them for a total of 6

tabes that's enough to fit nearly 12

High bit rate float plane exclusives

solely in system memory wait a second

lus memory I thought you just said it

was storage I did but the simplest way

to take advantage of it is in memory

mode where your optain modules just show

up to your operating system as a whole

whack load of RAM now the bad thing

about this mode is that it forces optane

to have one of the big downsides of RAM

for security reasons every time an

optain module in memory mode gets

restarted it generates a new

cryptographic key effectively wiping all

of the data that it contained the good

news is that optane can handle many more

wipes than regular ssds so this is

unlikely to harm it and what's also cool

is that no special coding is needed to

immediately use memory mode and the

cpu's memory controller will even

automatically move colder data off of

the memory onto the optain and vice

versa let me show you how this would

work in a demanding professional

application right now you're looking at

solid works flow simulator but we aren't

simulating anything at the moment

because first we need to generate a mesh

which is essentially a 3D Space full of

data sampling points where some fluid

let's say air is going to interact with

some object say this heat sink it's not

using that much RAM though what 45 gigs

48 gigs that's a lot of ram okay it's a

lot of ram but it's 2% of what we have

the issue is that it just takes hours

for the CPU to process a large enough

mesh like this for it to fill up all of

that Ram let alone the optain that's in

there and this is a really silly way of

doing this so what you're saying is flow

doesn't need that much RAM obtaine is

pointless no no no Flo Sim does need

heaps and heaps of ram just a model like

this doesn't necessarily if we were

trying to run something that's super

complex like crashing a car into a

barrier having terabytes of memory could

be the difference between a finishing in

a day and a finishing in a week of

course though this isn't memory its

latency is several times higher which

would obviously impact performance the

question is though how much to find out

we came up with a rather terrible idea

why don't we just remove a bunch of the

actual Ram so that the system has no

choice but to use the obtaine and then

we can do a before and

after it's not going to do anything is

it

nope oh jeez there goes the alarm wait

maybe there's no way no sadly Intel

thought of that and requires each stick

of obtain pm to be paired with a stick

of ram in order for the system to

function at all and they have a

recommended ratio of 4 to1 optained to

RAM for Optimal Performance ours however

it's more like a 16 to1 ratio and the

server came straight from Intel

so what do we do with the rest of it as

it turns out many customers simply used

higher ratios but there are some other

ways to take advantage of the persistent

part of our persistent memory app direct

mode and storage mode which Alex is

showing us now yes app direct mode

exposes the optain directly to the

application which can use it like

storage Ram or somewhere in between

unfortunately we aren't able to show

this off because doing so would require

us to code our own program that

explicitly takes advantage of it and

this is a task that almost no company's

worth billions of dollars found to be

worthwhile so doing it for a YouTube

video would have a dubious Roi to say

the least what we can show you is

storage mode have you ever wondered what

would happen if you could plug your SSD

into a high-speed memory slot well

basically this storage mode presents the

obtained tier operating system much like

an SSD just with super low latency

compared to traditional Mand flash

setting this bit up though was what

caused this project to be stalled for

months because we just couldn't figure

out how to do it not because Alex is

dumb or because I'm dumb but rather

because the BIOS on this Intel

motherboard is so poorly organized now

okay okay sorry this is going to be a

bit of a tangent but motherboard

manufactures can you please figure your

shiz out I mean we have this

industrywide problem where every single

motherboard maker calls the exact same

setting something ever so slightly

different and then puts it in a

different place meaning even if you are

quite knowledgeable and not dumb and you

know exactly what you're looking for

there's a solid chance you won't be able

to find it we were easily able to figure

out how to use app direct mode on Dell

super micro Lenovo and HP server boards

since they had decent documentation but

no not the Intel one we even called up

Patrick from serve the home who

literally wrote the guide on how to do

this and he couldn't figure it out

either okay look at this Lis I'm going

to go back to the main

menu we're looking for the memory

controller spot where do you think that

is well I would go to Advanced and then

I would probably go to memory

configuration so this is why we needed

Emily to help us find it yes it is under

PCI configuration um option ROM

controller and that's where the memory

controller is of course I can't believe

we didn't think of that Anyway by using

storage mode we're able to select how

much of the optain we want to be

presented as an SSD and we can create

volumes with it much like with a raid

array with the maximum performance

occurring when you interleave across

multiple optained dims that are

operating on the same CPU which

essentially creates a raid zero array on

opan now as you might have guessed this

does come with the risk of data loss so

if you don't care as much about

performance you might want to mirror the

data across both CPUs or I don't know

maybe just buy an

SSD but all of that aside the coolest

configuration is mixed mode this allows

you to set a target for how much of your

optain will be storage and how much will

be Ram creating a Best of Both Worlds

situation where the BIOS handles all of

the complex bits and you get both cheap

RAM and super low latency storage all

right what's your memory percentage goal

what do you mean goal it's doesn't

really do exact it just kind of gets

close to the percentage that you want I

think we all know the answer to that

nice so we

reboot

need sorry seemed

mad okay all right no you don't seem mad

you

seem rightfully like we need to discuss

this come on come on create name space

here we go there we go how about now

there we go

I love how surprised it is it's making a

YouTube thumbnail face speaking of which

we're working on a really cool video now

that YouTube has AB testing for

thumbnails Maria is creating a like

cringe YouTuber face version of every

thumbnail for a little bit and then just

like a nice relaxed one and then we're

going to make a video about which ones

people actually prefer whatever they say

they prefer it could change our

thumbnail practices there we go all

right okay what we're looking at right

now is our G Drive which is a

conventional nbme SSD and our o Drive

which is our optain drive and this

measure is seconds per transfer which is

essentially the latency of each

operation on the drive now what we're

going to do is we're going to run

Crystal disc mark on both of these

drives at the same

time and

theoretically yes yep the regular nvme

is way more which is bad o is opan opan

which makes sense because it barely even

appears that's how low the latency of

this is which doesn't matter for

everything and in fact if we have a look

at our Crystal dis Mark

results it's not that fast in terms of

sequential transfer speeds it's just

that it's really really responsive wow

we've done it we go okay we can actually

see what the crap we're looking at now

here we go this is what we expect to see

all three tests are running right now

there we go yes and our SATA is much

higher in terms of latency not to

mention that it can be very inconsistent

see that initial Spike when we first hit

it that's a yikes and while nvme is a

lot better it doesn't have that super

super flat line when all of them are

running the same test that we see with

optane where the latency is negligible

which which can be a huge benefit for

certain applications and not terribly

important for others which is cool in

some cases really cool so then why does

optain no longer

exist the answer is many many reasons

the first and biggest problem is that

optin arrived 2 years late it was

supposed to come with Skylake in 2017

with speeds that matched the ddr4 2666

that would be paired with those

processors but obtaine didn't arrive

until Cascade Lake which used 2933 megat

transfer per second dims that meant that

by choosing optain you would be giving

up memory bandwidth to every application

that doesn't need the extra capacity

that is not ideal also in 2017 there was

a global drram shortage as phones like

the Samsung Galaxy S6 Google pixel and

HTC1 M9 started using ddr4 while Samsung

and Micron were struggling to ramp up

production 16 gigs of RAM hit prices of

over

$200 that would have been a perfect

opportunity for an almost Ram product at

a lower price except that by 2019 that

same 16 gigs of RAM was down to more

like a hundo also remember how we

mentioned that each stick of obtained PM

requires a stick of ram to pair with it

in order for it to work

well yeah so companies that were looking

into optain they weren't just comparing

the price of opan versus Ram they had to

look at the cost of an optain module and

a stick of ram compared to just getting

two sticks of ram that uh oh by the way

are going to run faster Tom's Hardware

has an article from 2019 about the

pricing quoting a single stick of this

512 gig optain at a cool

$675 meaning that this server that we

casually lost when it was new had

$81,000 worth of optane in it that

sounds like a lot because it is but in

2019 a single stick of 128 gigs of ECC

memory was roughly

$4500 meaning optain was only about

onethird of the price so wait hold on a

second that was in 2019 that still

sounds pretty good I mean the demo we

just did looked pretty good optained for

the win right well I do love your

optimism remember guys we spoiled the

ending earlier and everyone dies but it

doesn't have to be a total loss there's

maybe a valuable lesson here for the

industry to maybe learn this time intel

if you're listening and everyone you

need to stop locking your products

because I didn't buy enough of your

products the Cascade Lake CPUs that did

eventually sh with obtaine had two

variants a standard version and a large

memory footprint version in the case of

the Zeon plattinum 8260 that we've got

in this server The Standard Version

supported only 1 tab of ram a number

that's pretty easy to hit with regular

old Dam meaning that if you wanted to

really take advantage of optane you

needed the zeeon Platinum 8260 L well I

mean that's no problem right I mean how

much more could it

$3,400 oh yeah and since you're buying

two of them it's an extra

$6800 before you buy a single flipping

optane module can see why they used L as

the suffix for those adding insult to

injury you know what also happened

between 2017 and 2019 while intel was

struggling to get optane out of the door

AMD launched epic Rome and then epic

Milan featuring more cores more memory

channels support for four ttes of ram

without a silly large memory footprint

tax oh and by the way they were also

cheaper this added up to not a whole lot

of people buying optane and Micron who

owned the Fab where all the optane was

being built finally said you know what

enough is enough it was and still is a

very cool technology but in 2021 Micron

figured you know it be a lot cooler how

about not losing 400 million ion dollar

a year so one year later Intel killed

optain which um raises one interesting

question why can you still buy it well

about that even though there hasn't been

a Fab making the stuff for years now in

20122 Intel revealed that they still had

over half a billion dollars of inventory

left over and they haven't exactly been

pushing it that hard I mean what is this

pricing Intel do you want this on your

books forever

there are some awesome closeout deals

out there these 16 gig accelerators are

amazing there are go-to drives for a DIY

Network Appliance or a NZ because

they're literally five bucks and opan

features substantially more right

endurance than nand which is great if

you want to constantly retain and

overwrite comprehensive system logs and

this one on new egg is still among if

not the best drive on the market even if

it is starting to show its age in some

ways for example it'll have outstanding

latency like we talked about before but

it runs at a quarter the maximum speed

of a modern Gen 5 Drive which is a bit

of a yikes so in

conclusion Intel do you want this thing

back we uh honestly really don't know

what to do with it but I do know how to

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