Intel has informed its customers that it plans to discontinue some of its Optane SSD DC P4800X solid state drives for data centres, one of the last 3D XPoint memory-based storage devices. Intel said that the last of its Optane SSD DC P4800X chips will be shipped to customers by October. Nevertheless, Intel still has a number of other Optane branded products available.
Intel is asking its partners to place final orders for Optane SSD DC P4800X 375GB, 750GB and 1.50TB drives in the PCIe 3.0 x4 form factor by May 30, 2023, and intends to deliver its final drives by September 30, 2023. For now, Intel's 2.5-inch U.2 model Optane SSD DC D4800X will continue to ship, although these drives will apparently also face discontinuation.
The affected models are listed below.
Intel officially axed its Optane business unit last year, but Intel continues to sell Optane branded SSDs based on 3D XPoint flash memory for data centres. for now, Intel will continue to offer its Optane SSD P1600X, Optane SSD DC D4800X, Optane SSD DC P5800X / P5801X and Optane SSD DC P5810X hard drives. In addition, the company will continue to sell its Optane persistent memory modules for now. However, given that 3D XPoint memory is no longer in production, it is clear that the remaining Optane branded products will soon run out of supply.
The high cost of the technology has prevented it from becoming widespread in the consumer market. But Intel's 3D XPoint memory offers far more endurance than 3D NAND memory. As a result, despite the high price, there is strong demand in data centres for Optane SSDs with 100 drive writes per day.
