6 ms·

Optane on a cheap adapter is superior in just this Swap application because the 16GB M.2 are very cheap, the 2x lanes aren't under utilizing your 4x motherboard

Optane on a cheap adapter is superior in just this Swap application because the 16GB M.2 are very cheap, the 2x lanes aren't under utilizing your 4x motherboard M.2 slot when used with an adapter, and Optane has better write endurance and latency then even the newest flash.

Melatonic 1mo ago
Read more about it. Not sure on endurance but does it really do that well on latency ? Curious if you have any resources. Some boards have a lot of spare m2
- undersuit 1mo ago
  https://cdn.multitronic.fi/media/a/3/mmo_41700684_1565162938_0972_15378.pdf https://cdn.multitronic.fi/media/a/3/mmo_41700684_1565162938... I suggest using an 1x PCI-e adapter because putting a M10 in a M.2 slot is likely going to only have 2 of 4 PCI-e lanes in use. You have to figure out the tradeoff of using a Swap on your, now very expensive as well, Flash storage that may have flashier sequential read and write speeds but doesn't have the ability to sustain random read and write performance which is what a Swap is going to use the most. There are faster Optane drives that use 4 PCI-e lanes or even PCI-e 4.0, but they get pricey quickly, so you should just buy ram then. The deal is the 16GB Optane on an unused 1x PCI-e slot.
  - Melatonic 1mo ago
    What about using one of those fancier enterprise Optane drives (that are also larger) either as a swap or - dedicated drive for writing or reading huge amounts of small files ? The Intel P5800x is the opposite of cheap but from tests I'm seeing the latency and performance is very impressive for some niche use cases
    - undersuit 1mo ago
      400GB of Optane for $500 is kinda tempting now(also the E1.s form factor p5801x). I run my P5800x on my NAS for small files and metadata. They're the fastest but I wouldn't suggest running out and buying one because you're avoiding a 16GB to 32GB upgrade, RAM is still faster. Use it as a caching or swap device when you're running a LLM on a motherboard with maxed out RAM and GPU.

Melatonic 1mo ago

Read more about it. Not sure on endurance but does it really do that well on latency ? Curious if you have any resources. Some boards have a lot of spare m2

undersuit 1mo ago
https://cdn.multitronic.fi/media/a/3/mmo_41700684_1565162938_0972_15378.pdf https://cdn.multitronic.fi/media/a/3/mmo_41700684_1565162938... I suggest using an 1x PCI-e adapter because putting a M10 in a M.2 slot is likely going to only have 2 of 4 PCI-e lanes in use. You have to figure out the tradeoff of using a Swap on your, now very expensive as well, Flash storage that may have flashier sequential read and write speeds but doesn't have the ability to sustain random read and write performance which is what a Swap is going to use the most. There are faster Optane drives that use 4 PCI-e lanes or even PCI-e 4.0, but they get pricey quickly, so you should just buy ram then. The deal is the 16GB Optane on an unused 1x PCI-e slot.
- Melatonic 1mo ago
  What about using one of those fancier enterprise Optane drives (that are also larger) either as a swap or - dedicated drive for writing or reading huge amounts of small files ? The Intel P5800x is the opposite of cheap but from tests I'm seeing the latency and performance is very impressive for some niche use cases
  - undersuit 1mo ago
    400GB of Optane for $500 is kinda tempting now(also the E1.s form factor p5801x). I run my P5800x on my NAS for small files and metadata. They're the fastest but I wouldn't suggest running out and buying one because you're avoiding a 16GB to 32GB upgrade, RAM is still faster. Use it as a caching or swap device when you're running a LLM on a motherboard with maxed out RAM and GPU.