Stefan Mileschin

It even makes Intel Optane interesting

According to a video posted recently online, it appears that it took AMD and StoreMI software to make the Intel Optane shine and pretty much make the experience as best as possible.

Back when AMD announced the Ryzen 2000 series CPUs, it also briefly noted that X470 chipset motherboards come with free AMD StoreMI technology software, which allows you to combine an SSD with a large capacity HDD to give you the performance of the fastest drive in that combination. Apparently, the software is also available for free with Threadripper CPUs, according to the video.

The software promises near SSD performance levels by using "advanced machine intelligence, virtualization and automated tiering to analyze the data blocks that are most often accessed, and actually move those blocks to the fastest storage tier".

Bear in mind that this is not a caching solution but rather tiered storage, something that has been available in the enterprise market for some time.

There are some limitations, as with the free version of the StoreMI software - one that does not need an additional license - you can combine up to 256GB SSD (NVMe or SATA) with any capacity HDD. In case you have RAM to spare, it can also create a 2GB DRAM cache as well. It also gives you an option to create a bootable or non-bootable virtual drive. The process is also reversible, which is a great feature as well, as you can go back to the original setup without losing any data.

According to a video hosted by Wendell from Level1Techs, which you can see below, the experience provided by StoreMI is great as it simply works, and works quite well. The video also explains the difference between different technologies like tiered storage and caching.

https://fudzilla.com/news/pc-hardwar...t-motherboards