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@Ceepyou wrote:

Inspiron 3670, i5-8400, 8 Gb Ram, 1 Tb hdd + 16 Gb Optane Memory cache. I installed a 500 Gb Samsung 860 Evo ssd

1. which is now the boot drive [and working]

2. I learned that the Optane Memory is not compatible with AHCI, although he didn’t explain

3. RAID actually enables AHCI, and if there is no arraying of disks, the SATA controller commands should be passed from RAID to AHCI. 

4. I just leave well enough alone (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it)?

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Due to items 1-4 above, I would not mess with it.  :Smile:

It's generally not advised to switch it (on a live system) because you often end-up with a non-bootable system.

There is this program called Crystal DiskMark. It would be interesting to see benchmark on the Optane-cached spinning HDD. I heard they now allow it to be a non-bootable (data) drive ... but no way to verify because I don't do Oplame.

Intel says Optane is now compatible with a secondary hard drive (SSD primary drive). And there's at least one thread on Dell's forum about setting that up. Don't remember the PC model so search for that thread.

BIOS is set to RAID with Optane because it acts like an array. If you change to AHCI, Optane won't work, and you may have to reinstall Windows.

If it ain't broke, don't break it. :Wink:

And let me guess, you used Internet Explorer to make your OP and ended up with one giant unformatted paragraph. You may want to use Firefox or Chrome with this platform to avoid that problem. And -yes- that's a pain...

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@Tesla1856 wrote:

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There is this program called Crystal DiskMark. It would be interesting to see benchmark on the Optane-cached spinning HDD. I heard they now allow it to be a non-bootable (data) drive ... but no way to verify because I don't do Oplame.

I've heard of the program. I'll see if I can do the benchmark and post back. By the way, why don't you do Optane?

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@RoHe wrote:

BIOS is set to RAID with Optane because it acts like an array. If you change to AHCI, Optane won't work, and you may have to reinstall Windows.

If it ain't broke, don't break it. :Wink:

And let me guess, you used Internet Explorer to make your OP and ended up with one giant unformatted paragraph. You may want to use Firefox or Chrome with this platform to avoid that problem. And -yes- that's a pain...

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That's interesting. Is that why Optane Memory requires RAID, because it is configured as an array of two drives on the Optane memory chip? If it aint broke, don't break it is good advice!

Actually, no I wrote the post in Word  and kept it as one long paragraph only because I thought it was a little long, and would have taken up even more room had I used more paragraphs. But maybe that would have been easier on the eyes! :Geeked:

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@Ceepyou wrote:

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By the way, why don't you do Optane?

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1. Because Intel-RAID-caching has historically, always been lame.

2. Because data still has to be fetched from slow HDD

3. I would rather use that one M.2/PCIe slot for a real NVMe SSD .

Take a look at the benchmark tests in the article https://www.dell.com/community/forums/replypage/board-id/Inspiron-desktops/message-id/11573. Not so lame. But I take your point, it's not a an NVMe SSD..

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@Ceepyou wrote:

 

RoHe

7- Thorium

 

Had I been better informed, I would have dispensed with the Optane card (which was a bonus given the sale price of the computer), installed Windows 10 in AHCI mode, and gone with 12 Gb of Ram. But I can lways add that if necessary.

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- dispensed with the Optane card 
- Buy and install a M.2/PCIe/NVMe SSD (instead of a SATA-based one)
- installed Windows 10 in AHCI mode

... Yes, that is what I recommend and try to lead people to (if they search forum or ask before they start buying things).

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@Ceepyou wrote:

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@Tesla1856 wrote:

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There is this program called Crystal DiskMark. It would be interesting to see benchmark on the Optane-cached spinning HDD. I heard they now allow it to be a non-bootable (data) drive ... but no way to verify because I don't do Oplame.

I've heard of the program. I'll see if I can do the benchmark and post back. By the way, why don't you do Optane?

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I downloaded Crystal DiskMark onto my C: drive (ssd) and ran it on both the ssd and secondary hdd. I had know prior knowledge of the program, so may not have optimized settings. The computer had a number of programs open and a number of tabs open in Microsoft Edge, but I just ran the results in that state. I had taken a look at the link provided by RoHe above (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000023991/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-m...) and found to my surprise that according to Device Manager, the 1 Tb secondary hdd appeared to be supported by the Optane Memory cache, despite my reading and being told by Dell that it only supports the boot drive. (And without my installing any of the interfaces that I thought were required to direct the cache from the boot drive to the secondary drive, although it might have happened through an earlier Window update, which I have since turned off in order to do manually.) So I thought it would be interesting (as did Tesla1856 earlier in this thread) to try Crystal Diskmark.  Here are the results doing 5 repeats, 1 Gb file size, all numbers in [MB/s] C: (12% full) Seq Q32T1 Read 555.5, Write 507.4; 4KiB Q8T8 Read 371.0, Write 311.5; 4KiB Q32T1 Read 195.8, Write 182.4; 4KiB Q1T1 Read 34.27, Write 68.41. Same settings for the D: drive (26% full) Seq Q32T1 Read 940.6, Write 181.2; 4KiB Q8T8 Read 932.3, Write 183.7; 4KiB Q32T1 Read 315.4, Write 183.3; 4KiBQ1T1 Read 97.1, Writec63.08. So interestingly, the hdd is faster on all the Read tests, and although slower for the first two Write tests, seems comparable for the second two. Don't these results confirm that the Optane Memory cache is indeed enhancing hdd performance? And if so, and if the cache requires the RAID Sata controller setting (as opposed to AHCI), shouldn't I just leave the settings as they are?

I vote to " just leave the settings as they are"...