Gigabyte's RAM drive card w/battery backup...
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You're getting it all wrong about the SATA-thing. The idea of this card is that it is recognised as a SATA-controller, this is the trick making it possible to trick the system into thinking the ram-sticks are a hardisk. So, sadly, you can't just plug it into a SATA port.
For the same reason PCI-e would be a great improvement, for one thing it has a slightly higher bandwith (150 mb per lane vs. 133 mhz on the PCI-bus) but maybe more importantly it won't have to share it's bandwith with anything else - everything on the PCI-bus shares the same 133 mhz. Of course the cool thing would be to have a version that could use at least 2 lanes, I hardly think much more would be needed really, and of course incoorporate sata 2 for the last 150 mb of bandwith.
As far as I figuer the thing will loose power as soon as the system is shut of so naturally an external PSU would be a great thing, I can't quite understand why gigabyte has bothered about the battery-solution, sure, it is more convenient to install, but most of us have our system of for more than a day occasionally, I recon...
For the same reason PCI-e would be a great improvement, for one thing it has a slightly higher bandwith (150 mb per lane vs. 133 mhz on the PCI-bus) but maybe more importantly it won't have to share it's bandwith with anything else - everything on the PCI-bus shares the same 133 mhz. Of course the cool thing would be to have a version that could use at least 2 lanes, I hardly think much more would be needed really, and of course incoorporate sata 2 for the last 150 mb of bandwith.
As far as I figuer the thing will loose power as soon as the system is shut of so naturally an external PSU would be a great thing, I can't quite understand why gigabyte has bothered about the battery-solution, sure, it is more convenient to install, but most of us have our system of for more than a day occasionally, I recon...
I,You're getting it all wrong about the SATA-thing. The idea of this card is that it is recognised as a SATA-controller, this is the trick making it possible to trick the system into thinking the ram-sticks are a hardisk. So, sadly, you can't just plug it into a SATA port.
For the same reason PCI-e would be a great improvement, for one thing it has a slightly higher bandwith (150 mb per lane vs. 133 mhz on the PCI-bus) but maybe more importantly it won't have to share it's bandwith with anything else - everything on the PCI-bus shares the same 133 mhz. Of course the cool thing would be to have a version that could use at least 2 lanes, I hardly think much more would be needed really, and of course incoorporate sata 2 for the last 150 mb of bandwith.
As far as I figuer the thing will loose power as soon as the system is shut of so naturally an external PSU would be a great thing, I can't quite understand why gigabyte has bothered about the battery-solution, sure, it is more convenient to install, but most of us have our system of for more than a day occasionally, I recon...
i dont think you are understanding the concept of this drive in its entirety. all data is sent over the sata connection, the computer simply recognizes it as a hard drive, not as a controller. secondly, when the computer is off it draws power throught the pci bus in the form of and 5V standby voltage, making an external power suppyl unnecessary. The battery is only in use when the power supply is physically switched off in the back or unpluggged.
Also, pci-e provides 250MB/s per lane and sata2 provides a 300MB/s bus per channel
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The I, the data transfer interface is SATA, not PCI; the PCI interface is A) a physical form factor so that there's a place to put the thing in one's system and B) so that the device can receive standby power when the system is off but the ATX power supply is connected and on (the very same standby power line that feeds the mainboard, and allows many boards to keep status LEDs active even when off--PCI slots provide standby power from this source as well when the system is powered off). The standby power is primarily for network adapters to receive continuous power allowing them to receive and initiate network boot commands, but Gigabyte is taking advantage of it here.
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Claimed ETA is now December. New review here: http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?d ... 20&dPage=1
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maybe the wrong site to post this, but anyone know of good resources for finding out how to make my own components, in this case a ramdrive like this gigabyte semi-vaporware? (i know i know, december...)
there's got to be a way to hack some parts together to make this work: an old motherboard with ram slots populated and then maybe link that to your mb via sata like these guys did.
or better yet, some kind of down and dirty pci-e or -x bus thing? i guess i really want to make my own pcb but come from the wrong background (art and design).
i just don't understand why comparable products have been priced through the roof for such a simple little collection of parts. gigabyte seems to have shifted that paradigm so it seems possible to do it for less.
i want one for pshop scratch for 900+mb files with lots of layers. mem limit in xp limits the usefullness of cenatek's ramdisk and i've been too lazy to go to xp64. i guess it'll be cheaper in the long run to go to xp64 and just plug in another 4gb of ram on the board. does Ramdisk work alright with xp64? i just fired off an email to cenatek asking that...
i'm holding off on buying and building a 4 drive 15kscsi level 0 array until the verdict is in on these inexpensive solidstate solutions.
just curious.
there's got to be a way to hack some parts together to make this work: an old motherboard with ram slots populated and then maybe link that to your mb via sata like these guys did.
or better yet, some kind of down and dirty pci-e or -x bus thing? i guess i really want to make my own pcb but come from the wrong background (art and design).
i just don't understand why comparable products have been priced through the roof for such a simple little collection of parts. gigabyte seems to have shifted that paradigm so it seems possible to do it for less.
i want one for pshop scratch for 900+mb files with lots of layers. mem limit in xp limits the usefullness of cenatek's ramdisk and i've been too lazy to go to xp64. i guess it'll be cheaper in the long run to go to xp64 and just plug in another 4gb of ram on the board. does Ramdisk work alright with xp64? i just fired off an email to cenatek asking that...
i'm holding off on buying and building a 4 drive 15kscsi level 0 array until the verdict is in on these inexpensive solidstate solutions.
just curious.
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I think $US
http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/7/1/448/11449
only place and very expensive.... $190
http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/7/1/448/11449
only place and very expensive.... $190
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According to VR-Zone, a new release of the i-RAM called i-RAM 2 is on the way. It will use DDR2 memories (8 slots and up to 16GB) and support SATA2 (up to 3GB/s):
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=3052
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=3052
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Interesting idea, carvecream.
The simplest way would seem to be a PC running Linux with a Firewire connection. Linux has a program that simulates a firewire drive, which could use a RAM drive. Firewire 800 isn't too slow.
As for SATA, I don't know of anything that emulates it. One option I suppose might be ATA over ethernet (ATAoE). I don't know much about it but there seems to be some support in Linux.
Certainly, just joining two SATA connectors won't work, and probably can't be made to even with special drivers.
The simplest way would seem to be a PC running Linux with a Firewire connection. Linux has a program that simulates a firewire drive, which could use a RAM drive. Firewire 800 isn't too slow.
As for SATA, I don't know of anything that emulates it. One option I suppose might be ATA over ethernet (ATAoE). I don't know much about it but there seems to be some support in Linux.
Certainly, just joining two SATA connectors won't work, and probably can't be made to even with special drivers.
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