Reddit mentions of Intel Optane Memory M10 16 GB PCIe M.2 80mm

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079JSKCW3/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075SBFGRB/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VB3Y89E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BP7RQTT/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013JPLOQQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ6A88G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYGFRL6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XSMTN31/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0759FTRZL/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ARGXM0Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Total as of right now for available purchase is around $800 with out taxes! I spent $742! I just put things i want into my cart on amazon and when the price drops i buy! I do shop around other websites and amazon still was the better choice and with free non-prime shipping! who cares if it comes two days later than normal. shoot ive had things come after two days with the free shipping.

>Unless there is some smoking deal on Optanes (most I've looked at are several hundred), it really just isn't worth it to me.

I was referring to the consumer Optanes like this. These don't need motherboard support if you're using them as a ZIL, they just act as a regular NVMe drive. If you're already using your NVMe drive as ZIL then there may be some small benefit from using the Optane, but it will definitely be faster than the SATA one.

Yes, the recommendation with FreeNAS is to pass drives directly. The scenario I was referring to is the original intended use case of Dell's hardware in a business where they're not going to be using FreeNAS to run production workloads, but rather the PERC card would be used directly by an ESXi/Windows/Linux host.

I'm not 100% sure what performance would be like if you ran FreeNAS on top of the PERC with just one ZFS volume with no FreeNAS drive protection enabled, but I'm fairly sure you'd have a hard time managing the PERC from within FreeNAS. In theory it should be fine, but I really don't know. You'd need a PERC H800 or similar with the external connectors.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Optane-Memory-Module-MEMPEK1W016GAXT/dp/B06XSMTN31

OP have you considered doing a HDD + Optane Memory?

On a budget, this would be your best bet for enough storage for games but still having SSD type performance.

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https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Optane-Memory-Module-MEMPEK1W016GAXT/dp/B06XSMTN31?th=1

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Seeing as you already have HDD's. Optane serves as a cache that reduces that boosts the performance of an HDD, I think it's close to like 95% performance of lower tier SSDs for reads.

Sorry for the late response crazy day in the IT world for me at work.

Either one will work with your board. I see the Toshiiba drive is 750gb thats a nice size do you know if that drive is 5200 rpm or 7200 rpm? Cuz if its 5200 rpm I would use that as a general storage drive dont put games on it or Windows. Use it as storage only. Its slow. If its 7200 use that as your main if not use the Seagate drive that one i can see in the pic is 7200.

Now I know you'er keeping costs down. Since you are going to be using a terrestrial drive (one that spins with platters) I would definitely recommend picking up one of these

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-MEMPEK1W016GAXT-Optane-Memory-Module/dp/B06XSMTN31/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498781932&sr=8-1&keywords=intel+optane+16gb

The board you linked does support that one only the 16gb. This will significantly speed up your system big time almost to the speeds of a SSD. It goes right into the M.2 slot on your board. You might have to update the BIOS on the board. If you dont know much about these here is a video to watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO_fh450u6Y

Let me know if you need any more help. I am always happy to help.

Intel Optane also has the same key. It seems both type of keys can be NVMe.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Optane-Memory-Module-MEMPEK1W032GAXT/dp/B06XSMTN31?th=1

There's a ton of adapters to convert m.2 <-> mini-pcie. For example.

But you will not be able to use a mSATA ssd.

You'll need storage that has a PCIe interface. Mini PCI Express only has 1x lane, whereas all storage will have more than that- I'm pretty sure they'll scale down automatically but not sure!! So you could put a Samsung 960 EVO in there or if you want the cache of all caches put a $50 Intel 16GB Optane drive in (there's a 32GB variant too).

The Armada 3700 SoC has a 2.5Gbit ethernet unit on it, implying it ought be an adequate data pusher. (The EspressoBin doesn't have the needed PHY and is limited to it's 1Gbit ports, but it's an indicator of what the SoC is intended for).

Do you know what Intel Optane is?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint

Did you purchase and try to install an Intel Optane SSD, and now it's giving you issues?

To piggy-back on some other comments with another option:

1. Return the 970
   
2. Make the 860 your boot/game drive
   
3. Buy an Optane drive to boost your HDD performance
   
4. Get a stronger CPU