Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

[Hephaistion]

http://bill-news.blogspot.com/2006/01/gigabytes-i-ram-storage-device.html

I actually thought about something like this years ago, but it is here! (Hard Drive!)
Not very big, but think about the possibilities! :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

[sackynut]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

http://bill-news.blogspot.com/2006/0...ge-device.html
I actually thought about something like this years ago, but it is here! (Hard Drive!)
Not very big, but think about the possibilities! :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

I saw news about this a pretty long while ago in another forum. But didnt hear much about it afterwards. This is great for doing things like loading windows in mere seconds, or loading game maps in seconds as well. It has many possibilities as long as it doesnt cost too much money.

[Blak_Phoenix]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

Yea i remember someone posting about this a while ago... that one was only 4GB, so it is small.. but bloody fast.

[Hephaistion]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

Yes but this represents a new way of thinking. This represents the first solidstate hard drive. This represents the future of data storage. Some day we will all laugh when we talk about our mechanical hard drives failing. That was the point of my post....

[Painl3ss.NL]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

One drawback though:

From the article:
===
Since it relies on volatile memory chips for storage, the i-RAM will lose data if the power is cut. Fortunately, the card can draw enough juice from a motherboard's PCI slot to keep its four DIMM slots powered, even when the system is turned off. The system does have to be plugged in and its power supply turned on, though.
===

So switch off the mains and everything you stored is gone. You have to have some smart backup/restore mechanism going, which most likely still needs a harddisk (which is slow again). I guess it basically is a 4Gig harddisk cache.

[Hephaistion]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

One drawback though:

From the article:
===
Since it relies on volatile memory chips for storage, the i-RAM will lose data if the power is cut. Fortunately, the card can draw enough juice from a motherboard's PCI slot to keep its four DIMM slots powered, even when the system is turned off. The system does have to be plugged in and its power supply turned on, though.
===

So switch off the mains and everything you stored is gone. You have to have some smart backup/restore mechanism going, which most likely still needs a harddisk (which is slow again). I guess it basically is a 4Gig harddisk
cache.

Actually if you read the whole article the device has a 1600Mah LiOn battery which will provide enough power for 10 hours of backup for 4 gb.

[Painl3ss.NL]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

Actually if you read the whole article the device has a 1600Mah LiOn battery which will provide enough power for 10 hours of backup for 4 gb.

Fair enough, that will make it at least a lot less accident prone. I wonder if it makes sense to use it as a swap device if you already maxed out your memory on your motherboard (although it may be a bit to expensive).

As a side note I read Windows Vista will have some interesting features for using ram and harddisks.

One is superfetch: remembering which applications you use a lot and preload them into memory. The other is using USB flash memory as harddisk cache/or swap memory. Apparently USB flash is a lot faster than a harddisk (no moving parts etc).

It won't have exactly the same effect as the I-ram device, but you will be able to get close.

[CaptJordus]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

I dont see the innovation?

Its always been known that RAM could be used for storage like that, but never has been because of the volatility.

Its just not practical to store data in something that would have such an easy/high failure rate.

[Inside]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

I'm not impressed the least bit, honestly. My Ipod can store 4 gigs and since this hard drive is limited to 150mb/s, the improvement of this over a regular harddrive is nill. And if you consider the price of 4-1 gig sticks of RAM, you could simply buy 2-80gig HDs and run them in a RAID1 array and you'll never lose data.

[AFEDslayer]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

Yea it is pretty cool, but hardly enough space to make it worth while.

[Hephaistion]

Re: Ok, here it is, (sit down for this)

I'm not impressed the least bit, honestly. My Ipod can store 4 gigs and since this hard drive is limited to 150mb/s, the improvement of this over a regular harddrive is nill. And if you consider the price of 4-1 gig sticks of RAM, you could simply buy 2-80gig HDs and run them in a RAID1 array and you'll never lose data.

YOU ALL ARE MISSING MY POINT!
I am not saying that this is the answer, but it is the 1st stop on the road to Solid State Hard Drives. I didn't say "go buy one" or "here is the link, last one without a Ramdisk is a rotten egg." I was saying that this may be the first step towards a viable non-mechanical hdd with seek times in the <1 nanosecond range, instead of the >9 Millisecond range. (a nanosecond is One billionth (10-9) of a second, a millisecond is One thousandth (10-3) of a second.) :|: