https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/optane-memory.html
looks like there is three choices to intels new drives that they say are faster than ssd's

ssd                            for storage or os 240gb/280gb
m.2                           for storage or os but small size 16gb/32gb best used for system acceleration
PCI Express 3.0         for storage or os 240gb/280gb

the only catch is you need to use kaybylake or coffeelake processors and motherboard has to support it

Does look like a bit of an odd one, it's not exactly industry standard, at least for now. One to keep an eye on maybe. Just be on the lookout for hype 

I found a video showing boot times, just for fun

 

And now a cheap little i3 I put together with an average SSD, again, just for fun 

  I got a much different impression of the Optane, videos I've seen say it is useful for speeding up a mechanical disk drive but wouldn't do much to help a SSD. Optane is low latency memory and after some use it puts the most used things into its memory and is then able to speed things up. Optane isn't that expensive in 16 and 32 GB or maybe 32 and 64 GB.
M.2 is now available in much larger sizes Speeds up to 1.8 GB and faster if used on a PCIe slot. 
  New computers are using UEFI rather than the older Bios and after a few weeks I'm still trying to get a M.2 or even a SSD with a UEIF compatible format that windows will install on.
Carl2

Quote from: Carl2 on January 05, 2018, 04:34:25 AM
New computers are using UEFI rather than the older Bios and after a few weeks I'm still trying to get a M.2 or even a SSD with a UEIF compatible format that windows will install on.
Carl2

Carl, I believe the majority of your problems have been self inflicted, sorry.

Secure UEFI boot in 3 steps.


1. Fit new unformatted M.2 to motherboard (don't connect any other drives )

2. Set UEFI/BIOS to secure boot (consult the motherboard manual)

3. Install windows from a USB flash drive.



Anyway back on topic:

What I find the most interesting about Optane is, what is it exactly.
It looks like memristor technology to me (a two pin resistor that can store a tiny charge and change it's resistance (very basically) ).

However Intel say it's not memristor technology but it works in a very similar way

I'm a nerd and I like to know these things 

QuoteDetailed descriptions from Intel of how Optane works are still notable by their absence—the company seems to have said more about what Optane isn't than what it is—but a basic picture is slowly being built from what Intel and Micron have said about the technology. The memory has a kind of three-dimensional (hence "3D") lattice structure (hence "XPoint"). Stackable layers have wires arranged in either rows or columns, and at the intersection of each row and column is the actual storage element: an unspecified material that can change its resistance to different values. The details of how it does this are unclear; Intel has said it's not a phase-change material, and it's different from HP's memristor tech, but it hasn't said precisely what it is.

Full Story

Staying with the Optane for now I see a lot of hype for selling purposes, here I some specs I found

Interface:  PCI Express 3.0 x4 (NVMe)
Internal Data Rate: 2500 MBps
Internal Data Rate (Write): 2000 MBps
Manufacturing Process: 20nm
Non-Recoverable Errors: 1 per 10^17
SSD Endurance: 5.11
SSD Technology: 3D Xpoint (Optane)
Storage Interface: PCI Express 3.0 x4 (NVMe)

Intel Optane SSD 900P Series, solid state drive, 280 GB - PCI Express 3.0 sells for $424   A Samsung EVO 960 NVME connected to a PICe at $141 is close enough for me.

  As far as self inflected injuries I agree, I just installed software advertized at AOL , Since I just click on the password box without using an input it locked the computer, after a few restarts there were Icons in the taskbar so I uninstalled the software, still got a block and had to Use recovery so it is as it was before.

QuoteHowever Intel say it's not memristor technology but it works in a very similar way scratch-head

wish i had the article that said microsoft got with3D XPoint (3D XPoint was a memristor developer/manufacture/researcher)  and then Microsoft used it's technology to create these drives.
but yet Microsoft says it is not memristor, but I am sure it has a huge chunk of memristor technology inside these drives.

further not it is hard to find info for this tech is still fairly new, and m$ only reports on there m.2 drives which yes is best for hhd cache or other system cache. and the ssd's and  PCI cards are used for main os and or storage. so while researching it is hard to tell if there talking about the m.2 or the sdd/PCI variants.

the m.2 optane I read does not make a hhd drive faster than a ssd unless it uses the data of the cache, other than that the hhd works at it's normal slow pace.

so are the ssd optane and PCI optane drives faster than a ssd? I can not answer for sure.