Rob Crooke was scheduled to speak at the Intel Keynote event here at Computex 2017, but he was no where to be found. Instead, Intel presented us with several first sightings that ranged from new Core i8 processors to modular systems smaller than a portable hard disk drive. The most interesting part for storage freaks, though, was a sweet, sweet Optane SSD.
The drive has long been rumored to come to market under the 900p name, with capacity sizes ranging from 250GB to 1.5TB. Not long ago, Intel told several members of the press about the new drive but would not elaborate on performance details. We were able to see the drive run in several demos, and the performance was a step beyond what we get today from NAND flash. Optane has the power to increase your user experience by cutting latency in all applications.
This is the first time that Intel publicly discussed the new Optane SSD. We were there to capture the brief moment. The video above starts with a demonstration of Optane Memory in a face-off between an Optane-accelerated HDD and a "vanilla hard disk drive." Once the brief demo was finished, the speaker pulled an Optane SSD.
The drive has what appears to be black tape over the label. It may be a P4800X enterprise SSD in disguise, just to show a representation of what's to come. The real story is that an Optane SSD is in the works, and it will be the fastest consumer SSD ever released to the public. We don't expect it to be cheap, but we're excited about the technology and what it will deliver for those willing to invest to reach the ultimate computing experience.
