Cheap laptops use cheap hard disk drives, which are much slower than the solid state drives found in better computers. But Intel’s new Optane Memory changes that. This little $70 chip makes a cheap hard disk drive run as fast as a solid state drive.
Intel’s Optane memory is the first instance of 3D Xpoint being used in consumer-level products. 3D Xpoint slots in right between DRAM and NAND. It’s as fast as the volatile stuff—capable of reading at that crucial byte level—but it’s also persistent. It’s the best of both worlds.
There’s already a 3D Xpoint storage drive available, taking advantage of the technology’s incredible speed, but that drive is 375GB and retails for $1,500.
Optane memory is Intel’s shot at giving consumers an affordable taste of 3D Xpoint’s incredible speed. It functions as a cache system for your primary storage drive, storing necessary data, sort of like RAM might, but holding onto that data in between restarts.
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