Q:

Magnitude of Optane performance boost

I have a Dell Precision 7530 with NVMe Samsung 970 EVO Plus drive. To my understanding Optane is just another NVMe drive to cache commonly used data. But since my storage is already as fast as the Optane drive, does it make sense to buy an Optane drive for my machine? Since it will not deliver any higher performance? Am I getting this right?

A:

Optane is a cheap cache and intelligent buffering layer for spinning rust hard disks and potentially SSDs.
If you already have an SSD then Optane might be a slightly faster device, particularly if your device is slow as some QLC NAND can be.
The two use cases that Intel mentions:

Accelerate Existing Storage
Pair Intel® Optane™ memory M10 with your existing hard disk drive (HDD) to get SSD-like responsiveness from your accelerated HDD boot or data drive. Boot, access storage, launch, and get things done at maximum speed from an accelerate HDD that automatically accesses frequently used files and applications.
Add Accelerated Storage
Add responsiveness and capacity to your computer with the intelligent combination of Intel® Optane™ memory and Intel® QLC 3D NAND storage in one M.2 form factor. Intel® Optane™ memory H10 with solid state storage combines responsiveness with up to 1TB of storage capacity in a single device.

In both cases Optane is used as a front end buffer for a slow-but-large device to optimise and enhance speeds of cheap bulk storage.
If you already have a fast and large SSD then Optane is not for you.

