Leaked roadmap reveals Intel's superfast Optane SSDs are scheduled for Q4 this year

Intel's superfast Optane SSDs utilizing the company's new 3D Xpoint technology is scheduled to become available as early as the end of this year, according to a leaked roadmap. The company is planning 3 series of Optane SSDs.intel-octane-ssd-roadmap

The leaked roadmap was posted by the Chinese website Bench Life and reveals that the three series will go by the codenames Mansion Beach, Brighton Beach and Stony Beach.

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Mansion Beach will be the first Optane SSD and should be released in the fourth quarter of this year. The drives will utilize the PCIe/NVMe interface Gen 3x4 and are targeted at enthusiasts and workstations. It's listed to have the same target audience as Intel's current 750 series SSDs.

Brighton Beach is also targeted at this audience but it utilizes the slower PCIe Gen 3x2 interface instead. The Brighton Beach drives are scheduled for the first quarter of 2017 and will be succeeded by Carson Beach Optane SSDs. These will feature a PCI Gen 3x4 interface in and come in a BGA or M.2 form-factor.

The last Optane devices on the roadmap are codenamed Stony Beach and are listed for 'System Acceleration'. The roadmap mentions them as Intel Optane Memory instead of Optane SSDs. They will be PCIe/NVMe Gen 2x3 devices and come available in a M.2. formfactor. Also the Stony Beach devices should become available in fourth quarter of this year.

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The roadmap shows that Intel's Skylake successor, Kaby Lake should become available in the third quarter this year and all Optane SSDs require this platform. Kaby Lake should be followed by Cannonlake, listed as CNL in the roadmap. This generation should support newer Optane drives, the roadmap lists that Cannonlake will get support for Mansion Beach Refresh, Carson Beach SSDs and Carson Beach Optane Memory devices.

During that time also Intel's second generation 3D NAND PCIe and SATA drives should be ready, which Intel lists as drives targeted at mainstream users.

It seems Optane won't become a mainstream product in the near future, which likely will also show when pricing information becomes available. To serve the mainstream audience Intel will continue to develop 'regular' SSDs.

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Intel Optane is marketed a revolution in memory and is developed in cooperation with Micron. It should combine the speed of RAM with the costs of NAND flash. It was the first commercially available phase change memory ever announced.

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