Intel Optane SSD 900P 480GB SSD Review

The Optane 900p is basically the consumer equivalent of the enterprise-focused Optane P4800X, aimed at high-end desktop and workstation usage. It has been designed to deliver consistently high random performance, particularly reads, at very low queue depths (QD1 – QD4) and at low latencies thanks to its 3D XPoint memory. The focus on these queue depth ranges is because they are where the vast majority of workload activity occurs in everyday usage.

So if the drive is focused on offering high random performance, what's the Sequential performance like? Well, it isn't earth shattering that's for sure. Intel quote Sequential reads as up to 2,500MB/s for the 480GB drive with writes rated as up to 2,000MB/s, both of these figures place the drive a long down the results graph for our ATTO benchmark tests. We did manage to squeeze a wee bit more out of the drive under testing, however, with 2,543MB/s for reads and 2,039MB/s for writes.

That being said, the random performance especially reads is very, very impressive. Intel's official figures for the drive are up to 550,000 IOPs for reads and up to 500,000 IOPS for writes. We couldn't quite match those numbers with our 4K random tests with reads coming out at 520,584 IOPS and writes at 423,587.

But a look at our results graphs shows just how good the drive is at low queue depths when it comes to random read performance. It tops the graphs at QD 1, 2 and 4 – with the only other drive coming close to it being the Optane SSD 905P that uses the same 3D XPoint memory. What is somewhat surprising is that the drive also tops the QD32 chart, knocking the longtime king of the hill, Samsung's SSD 970 PRO, into second place.

The drive's performance stability is also impressive. In our long term performance stability test the drive averaged 140,055 IOPS with a performance stability of 98.6%, a figure that is usually the domain of enterprise focused drives.

When it comes to the drive's endurance, forget about a TB TBW figure, the SSD 900P’s endurance figure is quoted in petabytes – 8.76PB to be exact, which works out to be around a massive 5TB of writes every day for the length of the 5-year warranty. It's a mind boggling figure for a drive aimed at the high-end desktop/workstation segment.

We found the 480GB Optane 900P on Ebuyer for £535.98 HERE.

Pros

• Random 4K read performance at low queue depths.
• Endurance.
• Performance stability.

Cons

• Expensive.
• Sequential performance not as strong as the random performance.

KitGuru says: Just like the Optane 905P we reviewed recently, Intel’s Optane SSD 900P offers exceptional random read performance at low queue depths and has incredible endurance – but it also comes with a very high price tag for its capacity.

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