Gigabyte's RAM drive card w/battery backup...

gmontem · Post by **gmontem** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:03 am

For those in the US, eWiz sells them for $122. I'd love to buy one of these to try out but I don't have a free SATA connector.

I wonder if there are SATA to IDE adapters around.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 2:19 pm

Copper wrote:It did say "In stock" this morning. Now it says that it "hasn't been released yet." And they raised the price from $219.00.

Probably not a very reliable place to buy.

All online stores do that. If they see they can charge more due to overwhelming demand, they will raise the price to improve their margins. It is quite a common practice.

I held out on buying an Antec Phantom for a few months because of this. Buy.com was selling the Antec Phantom 350 for $135.99 (the best price around) but raised their pricing right after I transfered the funds in my paypal account, so I waited a few months until they offered that price again and ordered it right away. Their pricing is now at $152.99, and at some point when demand settles down they will offer it for $135.99 again.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 2:46 pm

Out of curiousity, I did some research to see how much 8GB would cost (as 16GB would cost astronomical prices) and I discovered that Corsair's value select memory at Monarch was the least of all of the memory Crucial and Corsair (the only two memory companies I deal with) sell:

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant ... L=FRG&NR=1

At those prices, it costs $499.28 for 8GB of DDR2 Memory, which comes out to $62.41 per GB of silent storage before shipping and without estimating the cost of gigabyte's iRAM 2. Hopefully pricing will go down between now and when the iRAM 2 is avaliable for sale.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 6:32 pm

NewEgg has it listed now. Not in stock yet, but listed:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815168001

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 7:14 pm

Does anyone know if you have to fill up all 4 slots to get it running or just 1 or 2 or ... ?

Also, I assume DDR2 ram can pump out about 250 megs/sec no problem right?

silencery · Post by **silencery** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:22 pm

Schlotkins wrote:Does anyone know if you have to fill up all 4 slots to get it running or just 1 or 2 or ... ?

Also, I assume DDR2 ram can pump out about 250 megs/sec no problem right?

You can fill as many slots as you want.

It runs on regular DDR

EDIT: oops, the first i-ram does. I haven't tried the i-Ram 2.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 6:44 am

Ewiz has them in stock and is shipping them. They also have them on special for $118.95 with free shipping.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-RAMDISK

Mine is on the way.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:24 pm

Copper wrote:NewEgg has it listed now. Not in stock yet, but listed:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815168001

Buy.com also has it listed now:

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s ... caid=17379

It costs a bit less at Buy.com than at Newegg, and with free shipping too.

Edit: I hadn't seen the price at eWiz. Pleae disregard this.

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:23 am

OK, I have a question. I think I would basically use a Ramdisk in a temporary setting. Basically, I don't really plan on using the ram as a permanant storage location. Question is this: Let's say I loaded up my PC with 4 gigs of RAM. I used some software ramdisk to make a 2 gig RAMdisk. How would that perform compared to a 2 gig i-RAM? I guess is there any performance disadvantage to using software minus the temporary nature of the beast?

Thanks,
Chris

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:31 pm

Schlotkins,

Using system RAM would be faster. It would have lower latency and higher bandwidth because data wouldn't need to go through the SATA controller and SATA-DDR bridge . The i-RAM would have the advantage of storing data when the computer is shut down, if needed.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:27 pm

Yeah, a software RAM disk would be MUCH MUCH faster. Theoretically you're looking at 3200MB/s with DDR400 single channel, 6400MB/s with DDR400 dual channel. Compared to ~150MB/s with the SATA bus.

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 6:51 am

Excellent - now I just need to find some good software.

Cheers,
Chris

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 6:22 am

AR Soft RAM Disk:

http://www.arsoft-online.de/index.php?o ... cdesc=DESC

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 10:19 am

It seems to be disappearing fast. Newegg no longer has it listed and neither does eWiz. Buy.com and Bytewizecomputers still have them listed, but still no stock.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 12:36 pm

The iRam works on my Intel ICH5R south brigde (Intel board) with no problem. Gigabyte only lists the ICH6 & 7 as compatible. I'd bet this thing will work on most any board that has SATA.

There are a few listed on ebay:
http://computers.search.ebay.com/ramdis ... acatZ58058

Edited to add:

The i-RAM seems pretty RAM tolerant. I first used a 1GB stick of DDR266 and it worked fine. Now I added a 256MB stick of DDR400 along with the 266 and it still works fine. Not bad! I was able to throw together enough old RAM I had laying around to get XP installed.

PizPump · Post by **PizPump** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:59 pm

Yeah, it seems some jerkoff(s) bought everyone out and is reselling them on eBay for a hefty markup. Rat bastard(s).

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 1:32 pm

One or two of them are retail stores listing them on ebay. The i-RAM2 is scheduled to be released soon. Hopefully they produce more of them than they did of the first one. Not to mention they will probably be cheaper than those listed on ebay.

PizPump · Post by **PizPump** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:55 pm

I sure hope so, because I'm not paying 2-3x retail to some bottom feeder.

Traciatim · Post by **Traciatim** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:00 pm

Toms Hardware in their recent HTPC articles mentioned this as having an 8GB max limit using 2GB DIMMS, but most other sources I see say it's limit is 4GB, could somone who has one comment?

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:07 pm

Traciatim wrote:Toms Hardware in their recent HTPC articles mentioned this as having an 8GB max limit using 2GB DIMMS, but most other sources I see say it's limit is 4GB, could somone who has one comment?

My understanding is that Gigabyte will only support 4GB Max but the hardware is 'capable' of using up to 8GB worth of RAM. Would be good to see some more information on this ... like real life experience. If there were 4GB DIMMs on the market, they'd probably state you could put 16GB on them .. whether it works or not

Arrikhan

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:08 pm

EIDE to SATA I hardware adaptors are commony available. For instance, this one.

eWiz is now carrying Gigabyte i-RAM V1.1, with battery backup.

All this stuff is pure hardware. No drivers. Nothing to configure at boot time.

Think I'll give this a try to hold the swap file in a computer with only one normal HDD. Low power, low noise, low seek and latency! Why IDE to SATA I adapter? Because I run W98SE using FAT16 so I can stay compatible with some DOS utilities, and W98SE on my Asus SiS mobo is not friendly to SATA drives.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:28 pm

Neat, I wish I'd known about that before buying a SATA PCI card.

I believe Ewiz and newegg both have it readily available. I'd know because I've inadvertantly ordered an i-ram from each.

From what I can gather, version 1.2 adds an LED battery indicator, and 1.3 brings "Power Interface support PCI 3V & 5V Slot".

Gigabyte site

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 5:56 am

If the i-RAM is pure hardware (just like an HDD, it is alleged) then why does Newegg say it comes with a CD? An HDD doesn't come with a CD!

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:50 pm

If anyone knows where to find 2GB DIMMs of non-ecc DDR RAM I'll give it a try and report back.

I could only find DDR2 or ecc RAM in 2GB DIMMs.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:53 pm

Felger Carbon wrote:If the i-RAM is pure hardware (just like an HDD, it is alleged) then why does Newegg say it comes with a CD? An HDD doesn't come with a CD!

The CD has some kind of Nvidia driver on it. I have no idea what it is for. I popped in the DIMMs, popped the card in the pci slot, hooked up the sata cable and away it went.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 1:11 pm

A feature of the i-RAM that I like is its unfussy nature. I have a mix of DDR 266 and 400 that run at different timings and the card doesn't mind in the least. Though RAM with heat spreaders is out. They are too thick to fit.

I'm glad to see the card back on the market. I'm tempted to get a second card and raid them for more space.

elec999 · Post by **elec999** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 12:29 pm

I still dont understand the difference between rev1.1 rev1.2 rev1.3
Thanks

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:40 pm

elec999 wrote:I still dont understand the difference between rev1.1 rev1.2 rev1.3
Thanks

All revisions are detailed on the Gigabyte Website

In short, 1.2 brought in a LED indicator and 1.3 allowed for MAC support with different voltage support (3V & 5V)

Arrikhan

weebroonie · Post by **weebroonie** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:31 pm

when is the iram 2 coming out ?

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:43 pm

I-ram 2 was supposed to be announced in February. One Australian supplier of the original i-ram was out of stock, and told me they probably wouldn't get any in at all because i-ram 2 is so near. Then in the past fortnight or so, everyone seems to be stocking the original i-ram again.

It's all a great big muddled mess if you ask me.