Intel Optane Memory M10 16 GB PCIe M.2 80mm

I recently built a new computer for my nephew to run his virtual reality games. I had heard of Optane on the tech channels but never used it. The product acts as a fast, low-latency caching drive that uses a combination of hardware and software to intelligently cache frequently accessed data. In essence, it allows you to run a (much) cheaper HDD but get storage speeds comparable to an SSD. The advantages are 1. price, since Optane + a 1TB HDD is still considerably cheaper than a 1TB SSD, and 2. storage density, since HDD come in sizes way larger than SSD.There are serious limitations you should understand going in. First, it won't work great in all cases, such as when you are working with very large files. Second, you need to match the Optane product to a newer Intel chipset motherboard specifically designed to use Optane. And third, you can only use Optane with your primary HDD; it won't work with drive arrays that I'm aware of.Still, installation wasn't too involved and on the computer I built it reduced boot times to something like 4 seconds; not bad at all in my book. If you are looking to build a basic-ish computer and want a decent amount of storage but have a limited budget, I would seriously consider Optane.

A cheap simple upgrade to my Dell mini PC that had an open M.2 slot. These Optane modules only work with certain CPUs and motherboards, so check your computer to make sure it will be recognized by the BIOS and the OS. You also have to use the Intel Optane driver package which can be finicky to install. I had to install and reinstall a couple of times before the software recognized the Optane. I also had to go into the BIOS and select the correct HDD settings for Optane (it's kind of like a RAID setup, but not). Once configured, everything seems to be working great. There's no noticeable difference in PC performance so the gains are questionable. But for less than $20 it's a fun PC hardware upgrade.

I'm using a pair of these small but fast SSDs as cache drives for my Synology NAS. The Synology OS uses one for write caching and one for read caching. This makes transferring lots of small files much faster than before. While these drives are not on Synology's official compatibility list, I've heard from other Synology users who have also had success with these drives. At their current price, it is worth it!Edit: Upon update to the latest Synology software, one of the cache drives was either unsupported or died. This caused a major issue that required a complete reinstall of the Synology software on my NAS. Fortunately, this did not lose any of my data but did require that I re-install all my packages and re-configure everything. It could have been worse.

Used this on the front end of my home TrueNAS system. Didn't need the potential write speed increase, but liked the bufferd/write capabilities, and perhaps a bit more resilience on a power outage. Had a slot for it on my new system, and cheap enough for a bit of potential extra insurance.

I should have done my homework: the Optane Memory is mainly used to accelerate your HDD and make it almost as fast as a SSD. The problem is that my primary drive is already a SSD and I was thinking that I could accelerate my HDD as a secondary drive. No, you can't do this! The Optane Memory Module, on top of all technical requirements (Windows 10 + Optane Ready MOBO + 7th generation 64 bits Processors) also requires that the drive to be accelerated has to be the primary drive in which the Windows is installed.Fine, my fault here, I should have done my homework in reading carefully Intel page about the Optane Memory Module (go to the FAQ). Although it can accelerate a SSD the gain is not high enough to justify its price. If I knew that already, I would have chosen to buy a bigger SSD rather then spend money on the Optane.Nevertheless, despite all the frustration (once again, I think that was 80% my fault), what really makes this a three star review is the installation process: while reading Intel's website and watching their tutorials makes you think it's a "plug & play" process, it is not! Already have your Windows up and running? 99% chance that you'll need to format your PC, so be prepare to back up everything you have.There are several guidelines that you need to follow: your disk should be formates as GPT (MBR is not allowed), you need to have at least 5MB of non-allocated memory in your disk as part of the installation. Oh, and your BIOS should probably be updated and customised with a few tweaks to properly access the Optane Module. And how do you know that? Google + Youtube (users video, the Intel one doesn't give you much information). On top of all that you will need a lot, really, a lot, seriously, a looooot of patience.Bottom of line: seems that Intel came up with a good idea for on budget people who doesn't want to spend a lot of money in bigger SSDs, but rather accelerate their HDD. That's awesome, but still, the lack of clear information of how the memory can be used (go to the FAQ before buying it) and also the misleading "simple installation" idea are frustrating. Once you get pass this obstacles, the equipment does what it should do: accelerate you HDD or your SSD (barely perceptible for the last one).