In a surprise move, Intel has announced it is discontinuing all Optane-only solid-state drives aimed at the consumer market.
As Tom's Hardware reports, the decision was a swift one, with last order dates for all consumer Optane drives already passed and final shipments set for Feb. 26. Intel hasn't offered a detailed explanation as to why it decided to do this, but with the recent unveiling of a new Optane SSD P5800X for data center servers, it's clear Intel sees an enterprise-only future for Optane.
In the discontinuation notes, Intel says, "Intel will not provide a new large capacity Optane Memory SSD as a transition product for the client market segment. Intel will focus on the new Optane Memory H20 with Solid State Storage for the client market segment."
So the one remaining consumer-focused Optane product is Optane Memory H20 drives. They are QLC flash SSDs aimed at the laptop market that take advantage of an Optane memory cache for a speed boost. The discontinued Optane-only drives include the Optane 905P, 900, 800P, and M10 Series SSDs.
Optane SSDs certainly weren't cheap, and the decision to stop offering them to consumers comes just as the market is shifting to PCI Express 4.0 drives, promising read and write speeds in excess of 6,000MBps. The fastest PCI Express 3.0 could offer theoretically, including existing consumer Optane SSDs, was 3,000Mbps.