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Further off, Intel may bring Optane memory to
client PCs as a supplement to traditional DRAM.
Though non-volatile Optane memory acts like flash,
storing data without active power, it’s slower than
DRAM. Optane in a DRAM form factor – Optane
DIMMs – will appear in the server market later this
year. Eventually, it could migrate downward to PCs.
“You could think of the enthusiast or workstation
market taking advantage of that,” Crooke ad.
The future: Moving SSDs to the cloud
Intel’s end goal, however, is to connect PCs directly to
the cloud. The only local storage on a PC would be an
Optane drive, ‘caching’ the most frequently used data
directly on the device. (We already have a version of
this on our PCs today, with a OneDrive On Demand
‘folder’ that Windows 10 PC users can use to save
and load data from the cloud.) Hard drives? Nope.
Eventually, Crooke said, hard drives will be replaced.
Here’s how Intel’s cloud-connected PC vision works:
Connecting to storage in the cloud via 5G has roughly
the performance of a SATA-based hard drive, Crooke
said. “And so if you can put Optane in front of a SATA
hard drive, with good performance, in theory you
could put that hard drive in the cloud,” he said.
Right now, Intel’s cloud-connected PC is little more
than a concept, since 5G technology isn’t expected
to be deployed until 2020. Users and PC makers alike
would have to be confident that end users would be
able to tap into 5G wireless virtually anywhere, Crooke
said. “There’s still a ways ago, but you can see where
this is going, from a technological point,” Crooke said.
Worldmags.net
MAY 2018 • TECH ADVISOR 15