Guide: use Intel Optane Memory H10 with Rock5B / pcie splitting

incognito · January 30, 2023, 8:39pm

Yes, I checked and indeed it shows nvme0 but nothing else. But wouldn’t be the case as well if it was just not partitioned?
Output of dmesg|grep nvme:

[    9.118642] nvme nvme0: pci function 0000:01:00.0
[    9.118707] nvme 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    9.123662] nvme nvme0: could not set timestamp (16390)
[    9.123720] nvme nvme0: Could not set queue count (16390)
[    9.123728] nvme nvme0: IO queues not created

Output of dmesg|grep 0000:01:00

[    8.813923] pci 0000:01:00.0: [8086:2522] type 00 class 0x010802
[    8.813986] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x10: [mem 0x00000000-0x00003fff 64bit]
[    8.814061] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 0x20: [mem 0x00000000-0x0000ffff 64bit]
[    8.814104] pci 0000:01:00.0: enabling Extended Tags
[    8.826516] pci 0000:01:00.0: BAR 4: assigned [mem 0xf0200000-0xf020ffff 64bit]
[    8.826570] pci 0000:01:00.0: BAR 0: assigned [mem 0xf0210000-0xf0213fff 64bit]
[    9.118642] nvme nvme0: pci function 0000:01:00.0
[    9.118707] nvme 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)

Dante4 · January 30, 2023, 10:49pm

You dont have namespace on it. Create it

incognito · January 30, 2023, 11:13pm

I don’t know what a namespace is or how to create it.

gnattu · January 31, 2023, 1:51am

Try nvme create-ns /dev/nvme0 with root.

hallo1 · January 31, 2023, 5:08am

Your ssd is very likely to be bricked.
Better check on a windows pc using the Intel MAS tool.

incognito · January 31, 2023, 7:28am

This resulted in:

FLBAS corresponding to block size 0 not found
Please correct block size, or specify FLBAS directly

gnattu · January 31, 2023, 7:45am

Okay, try with nvme create-ns /dev/nvme0 --block-size 512 again. If even that does not work I probably don’t know what to do next.

Dante4 · January 31, 2023, 8:13am

Then please open google and read. Or just use pm9a1

incognito · January 31, 2023, 3:29pm

I tried with 4096 previously and with 512 after your post. The result is always:

identify failed
NVMe status: INVALID_NS: The namespace or the format of that namespace is invalid(0x400b)

@Dante4 you are not helpful, why don’t you keep these comments to yourself? I know I can use Google but I don’t have enough background to understand nvme namespaces.

Here is the output of nvme id-ctrl /dev/nvme0

NVME Identify Controller:
vid       : 0x8086
ssvid     : 0x8086
sn        : PHBT813403JD016D
mn        : INTEL MEMPEK1W016GA
fr        : K3110310
rab       : 0
ieee      : 5cd2e4
cmic      : 0
mdts      : 5
cntlid    : 0
ver       : 0
rtd3r     : 0
rtd3e     : 0
oaes      : 0
ctratt    : 0
rrls      : 0
cntrltype : 0
fguid     :
crdt1     : 0
crdt2     : 0
crdt3     : 0
nvmsr     : 0
vwci      : 0
mec       : 0
oacs      : 0x6
acl       : 3
aerl      : 3
frmw      : 0x2
lpa       : 0x2
elpe      : 63
npss      : 0
avscc     : 0
apsta     : 0
wctemp    : 0
cctemp    : 0
mtfa      : 0
hmpre     : 0
hmmin     : 0
tnvmcap   : 0
unvmcap   : 0
rpmbs     : 0
edstt     : 0
dsto      : 0
fwug      : 0
kas       : 0
hctma     : 0
mntmt     : 0
mxtmt     : 0
sanicap   : 0
hmminds   : 0
hmmaxd    : 0
nsetidmax : 0
endgidmax : 0
anatt     : 0
anacap    : 0
anagrpmax : 0
nanagrpid : 0
pels      : 0
domainid  : 0
megcap    : 0
sqes      : 0x66
cqes      : 0x44
maxcmd    : 0
nn        : 0
oncs      : 0x46
fuses     : 0
fna       : 0x4
vwc       : 0
awun      : 0
awupf     : 0
icsvscc     : 0
nwpc      : 0
acwu      : 0
ocfs      : 0
sgls      : 0
mnan      : 0
maxdna    : 0
maxcna    : 0
subnqn    :
ioccsz    : 0
iorcsz    : 0
icdoff    : 0
fcatt     : 0
msdbd     : 0
ofcs      : 0
ps    0 : mp:4.50W operational enlat:0 exlat:0 rrt:0 rrl:0
          rwt:0 rwl:0 idle_power:- active_power:-

Lost cause?

OK, after doing the same with intel in the command one of the lines was:
health : *BAD_CONTEXT_6001
Which means it’s broken.

One more edit. The previous owner assured me the drive was working well. Which means that first generation Optane MEMPEK1W016GA can probably only be used for caching, while the second generation (Intel Optane M10) could also work as a normal storage device. I ordered a MEMPEK1J016GA to test this.

Dante4 · January 31, 2023, 6:52pm

I’m not helpful, because you don’t follow advices.
Literally first google link explains what you need to do to create namespace

Also you are trying to do something that not even have any reasons behind it, unless Optane costs like 1/3 of pm9a1, then yes, it’s actually have some reasoning. Optane nvme simply slower than pm9a1

incognito · January 31, 2023, 7:10pm

Well, this optane cost me about $7 so yes, it is significantly cheaper. And before actually doing this I want to know what I am doing.

I have other SSDs but I don’t want to use them on the rock5. I want to use optane. What is your problem?

Dante4 · February 1, 2023, 12:02am

Nvm then, what does the following guide says? Do you receive the same error?

incognito · February 1, 2023, 7:01am

I can’t create a namespace (you can see what I tried in the earlier posts).
In general the BAD_CONTEXT_6001 is not recoverable. This happened to someone else too: https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Optane-Memory/Intel-Optane-32Gb-unknown-error-BAD-CONTEXT-6001/m-p/1418443#M8311 on the same generation of Optane. So I think the first gen might be limited to working as HDD accelerators. I don’t think there’s much I can do with it now before the 2nd gen arrives (also very cheap).

enoch · February 1, 2023, 12:41pm

how to tell if it is 1st gen or 2nd gen H10? I think this 16GB+256GB configuration over 2x PCIe 3.0 x2 is kinda cool normally I have a small rootfs (~8GB) so putting it to the Optane partition makes sense; then the 256GB can be used for something else, say in my case I can dedicate it for blockchain database that’s around 100GB in size, and for other type of data perhaps.

And by “very cheap” may you tell me how much would it cost in USD?

incognito · February 1, 2023, 1:12pm

@enoch
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000017245/memory-and-storage.html - here you have a table (see “client SSDs”) - 1st gen is just Optane Memory, 2nd gen is M10, then H10, then H20.

I bought 16gb 1st gen used (OEM) for $7 and 16gb 2nd gen (OEM) for $9 but prices in your country may be different. H10 will be more expensive of course.

incognito · February 3, 2023, 6:51pm

Intel Optane Memory M10 confirmed to work - access times are excellent.

EDIT: just moved the armbian rootfs to the optane M10 drive (/boot is on the SD card). Everything works very well and is snappy.

kevin335200 · February 4, 2023, 10:26am

Samsung Issues Fix for Dying 980 Pro SSDs | Tom’s Hardware (tomshardware.com)

Just a kind reminder: Samsung recently has numerous reports of 990 PRO health dropping rapidly and 980 PRO failures, even the 970 EVO PLUS may also have some batches affected.
In addition, Samsung’s SSD usually has a high current and tempature under load, so if you really want to buy, make sure you have enough power supply and avoid SSD overheating.

SK hynix Gold P31 did an excellent job in terms of power consumption control. This is not buying recommendation, though, because I haven’t tested it for compatibility.

Image Source: Power Management - The Best NVMe SSD for Laptops and Notebooks: SK hynix Gold P31 1TB SSD Reviewed (anandtech.com)

enoch · February 5, 2023, 2:12pm

I just check it on Taobao, all w/o S/H (I use forwarder so not too big of a concern)

M10 16GB is dirt cheap at US$3
M10 32GB is $15
H10 16GB+256GB is $40
H10 32GB+512GB is $60

I could only see H20 32GB+1TB on eBay at $99 but not on Taobao, which I think is of better value then the H10 512GB; Again, technically having 2 SSD in a single slot is what’s interesting to me

incognito · February 5, 2023, 4:10pm

What is S/H and what’s a forwarder?

enoch · February 5, 2023, 6:35pm

They are not using this term nowadays? in the US it refers to “shipping and handling”.

(freight) forwarder is basically a warehouse which you can buy individual items from a country (say China or Japan, which are my favorite locations) and you ship your order to the forwarder’s warehouse. Once you have completed your many purchases and they are all collected by the forwarder, you can have a single shipment of all these orders combined, going from the forwarder to your home.

Doing it this way, you could save quite a bit on shipping cost… I normally buy 5+ orders, and sometimes even 10+ before I ship them to my location. For example, if I would have to ship them directly from merchant, it may cost me $10+ per order, so 5*$10=$50 just on shipping. If I combine them it would normally cost far less, like $20 or less.

The drawback is that I would have to wait till all orders being collected by the warehouse, and there is generally storage time limit before the warehouse start to charge storage fee. Free storage ranges from 20 days to 180 days with the ones I am using. But sometimes with 180 days free storage, I can do multiple purchases and multiple shipment “easier”, especially for items that I don’t need it “now”.

They may not be “foreigner friendly” though: many of these forwarders in China have only Chinese UI, and I use them because I can read Chinese, of course