14 DAY TRIAL // HP has worked a long time developing a new type of storage and memory technology called Memristor, which the company hopes to replace DRAM and NAND with some form of stacked memory. Although it has never been secret nor very popular, HP has decided to work together with SanDisk and make some money out of Memristor.
HP plans to turn "Memristor" into some form of storage devices used in data centers and other enterprises. The plan is fairly simple: to start developing premium products for business customers.
HP's Memristor new memory technology, which is somehow a direct competitor to Intel 3D XPoint and Samsung's 3D NAND, wants to bridge the gap between what we normally think of as RAM and storage. It supports speeds up to 1,000 times higher than that of NAND flash storage, but it isn't that fast compared to normal RAM memories, unfortunately.
However, unlike RAM and very much like 3D XPoint, the new Memristor is a non-volatile storage, which means it won't require power to retain data, which makes it very similar to flash NAND. In its turn, flash NAND is a technology similar to 3D XPoint, combining the RAM and flash properties for a mix that offers enormous performance compared to both. Obviously, being eco-friendly, Memristor would become a favorite of companies pretty quickly since they obviously save money they don't have to spend on expensive energy bills.
Can Memristor face off Intel's 3D XPoint in winning data center companies' attention?
Overall, it's clear why HP and SanDisk refer to the new Memristor data storage memory as "Storage Class Memory," since it's specially built for data centers. However, the question remains how it will fare against Intel. 3D XPoint is already ahead when it comes to publicity and readiness, and Intel has already showcased the Optane at IDF 2015 as the first 3D XPoint SSD with a 6GB/s bandwidth compatible with DDR4 and PCIe 3.0 x4 slots.
Although HP unveiled Memristor almost a year ago, it didn't really progress enough with the new memory technology compared to Intel, which introduced 3D XPoint much later but publicized it fiercely, effectively making it known as the de facto standard next-gen memory tech.