linux-kernelintelsata

Does Linux 3.1 support Intel Optane?


Does Linux Arch 3.1 support Intel Optane? I have booted kernel 3.1 on SATA. Is there Intel Optane on SATA? Or does Linux 3.1 support any other Optane interface?

EDIT

It is Arch based Audiophile Linux 3.1:

uname -a

Linux server1 3.10.14-rt9-1-rt #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Wed Oct 9 ... 2013 x86_64

The version 4.0 had a problem in my system. I did not try 5.0.


Solution

  • That distro snapshot is from 2015. Using it in 2020 (especially on a network) seem like a terrible idea from a security POV! It's not like RedHat or something where they backport security fixes to old versions of kernel and user-space, this snapshot of Arch GNU/Linux simply hasn't been maintained since then.

    "Linux 3.1" is highly misleading terminology. You're talking about a distro release version, so you need to say "Audiophile Linux 3.1". If you just say Linux x.y, that's assumed to be a kernel version number. Linux is the name of the kernel itself.


    AFAIK, only Optane DC PM needs any special support (for mmap(MAP_SYNC) since Linux (kernel version) 4.15), and maybe for talking to the NV-DIMM itself.

    Other Optane devices (Optane DC and consumer-grade Optane) are just fast SSDs that use standard protocols, typically NVMe.

    Some of the stuff that Intel associates with Optane like using Optane as a cacheing drive to accelerate a rotational HDD or to "augment your DRAM" is purely (Windows) software that's locked to using certain Intel HW. e.g. Confused about Intel Optane DC SSD usage as extra RAM with IMDT? explains that IMDT is just Intel software to use an Optane DC SSD as swap space.

    SATA is too slow for most of the benefit. A quick google didn't find any Optane SATA devices; not really surprising. It's unlikely that Intel sells any SATA-connected Optane drives based on 3DXpoint memory.

    Linux kernel version 3.10 supports NVMe; support was added in Linux 3.3. (Assuming this distro built its kernel with NVMe enabled.)

    A kernel as old as 3.10 might have problems with other hardware on a new motherboard. (Including but maybe not limited to integrated graphics.)


    If your realtime latency requirements are very low, you might want to look into NV-DIMM, or just a RAM disk (which you copy into at startup) for data that needs to be ready with low latency, to make sure reading never has to wait for disk latency at all.

    If not, you can probably use a modern distro that's still maintained, with a low-latency kernel.

    Or mmap files and pin them into memory with mlock to make sure they stay ready. (Doesn't solve the initial-read latency, but allows guaranteed low latency access for files once you've done that. And doesn't need expensive storage. A high-capacity TLC or QLC NVMe SSD could be fine, especially if you look for one that doesn't ever block for long periods of time under read-only workloads. Use noatime to prevent writes.)