Smack that SSD - 7GB/sec read, 10GB/sec write - for free!

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3 Feb 2011
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Morning all.

Yummy :)



All you need is some free RAM, and RAMDisk

Very useful for multimedia editing/encoding/manipulation (including Photoshop scratch disk). Great place for your browser cache also.

To be used for temporary processing only, files, once edited/complete, are to be moved to permanent storage drive (RAMDisk uses an image to restore files upon reboot, but not recommended for permanent storage).

16GB RAM costs £200. Can you imagine the cost of the RAID-0 drive that couldn't even touch these speeds? :)
 
heres a pic of what i was saying
you can get ones that link up on sata
ddrdrive_x1_p5.png
 
I've got a gigabyte Iram, I had 4x 1DDR sticks on it, and I had Windows XP (nlited) on there.

I took almost daily Acronis true image backups of it, now it sits in the corner, should sell it really!
 
Just heard from DDrive

List price for a single DDRdrive X1 4GB/4GB is $1,995 USD with
a five year warranty, ACDC adapter, and transport case.

Considering RAM is so cheap, RAMDisk seems the better option for most :)
 
You'll note that the DDRdrive and it's ilk are nowhere near as fast as RAMdisks using the system RAM. May as well use SSD's unless you are running a heavily used database that's generating tens of thousands of IOPS 24/7.

And then you are dependant on the speed of the RAM, I have a RAMdisk for my browser cache (It is persistent, saves on shutdown/reboot and loads on startup), but being a couple of generations away from the curve (Dual channel DDR2 6400) The performance is a lot worse. CPU usage is pretty heavily impacted too.

7vpeQ.jpg
 
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You'll note that the DDRdrive and it's ilk are nowhere near as fast as RAMdisks using the system RAM. May as well use SSD's unless you are running a heavily used database that's generating tens of thousands of IOPS 24/7.

And then you are dependant on the speed of the RAM, I have a RAMdisk for my browser cache (It is persistent, saves on shutdown/reboot and loads on startup), but being a couple of generations away from the curve (Dual channel DDR2 6400) The performance is a lot worse. CPU usage is pretty heavily impacted too.

7vpeQ.jpg

How much did you assign for the cache? 500MB, 1GB?
 
I get Firefox to use system memory for cache already - there is a setting for it in the about:config set up.
 
Now that 4Gb sticks are relatively cheap this has got to be worth a play again - given that you can get 24Gb onto a 'normal' motherboard, not to mention the possibilities on the dual-socket monsters... mmmmm... something like an SR2 and you could have a 40Gb RAMdrive with 8 Gb of system RAM - just imagine if you could get a decent boot loader and have Win 7 slipstreamed onto it.... must stop drooling on the keyboard! :D
 
Nice tip!

Made a 100MB RAMDisk for Firefox program folder and profile/cache that mounts on startup, first FF load is 1.5s flat now :D
 
if i set up 500mb ram disk for my 4gb DDR3 does that mean my system will only have 3.5GB ram to use?

i want to use it for chrome and firefox as they take an age to load for me.


Nice tip!

Made a 100MB RAMDisk for Firefox program folder and profile/cache that mounts on startup, first FF load is 1.5s flat now :D


can you explain how you did this
 
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