PCIe SSDs & Ramdisk 'junction points' - HELP

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
I

irlwizard

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2011
152
0
18,680
Hello,

A new PCIe card by ASUS sparked my interest in hardware again but the product page left me with more questions than answers...
http://www.asus.com/Storage/RAIDR_Express_PCIe_SSD/

Q1) What are ramdisk 'junction points', are they exclusive to ASUS? And do I even need this piece of hardware to take advantage of such a ramdisk?
Edit: What kind of software, apart from video-editing and rendering applications could benefit from this? If you can think of any examples, please list them. Thanks!

Q2) ROG HybriDisk - once again, is this exclusive to ASUS or can you 'HybriDisk' any type of PCIe SSD such as a OCZ Revo with a HDD?

Q3) If you pair a PCIe SSD with a HDD from HybriDisk, can this be done with HDDs that are in a raid array? Here is my thought... On the product page it states that ROG HybriDisk supports up to 4GB of storage... So could I raid10 or 0 four 1TB seagate HDDs and HybriDisk them with the ROG PCIe card (or other PCIe card)!? LMAO, if this theoretically works I might just be insane enough to give it a go for xmas! xD


If this is impossible and you think that I'm an idiot, that's ok - but one can dream, right. ^.^
 
Solution
popatim
ok when the system looks for you file it goes to the drive. After the asus copies your file out to the ramdrime, it needs a way to tell the system to grab copy and not the original. It does that by creating a junction point that redirects the call to the ramdrive. Pretty much the same way that My Documents actually brings you to C:\users\username\documents


As for the ramdrive in sleep mode, sleep mode keeps the ram refreshed/ alive so it doesnt get lost. Many systems actually hybrid-sleep where the system state is first copied to a file on the drive. If power is lost during sleep you can still 'wake' normally, just takes a little longer as the file gets copied back to ram. I dont know what effect hybrid sleep would have on a...
Sort by date Sort by votes
popatim

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Dec 2, 2009
38,898
979
135,890
1:The asus bd allows you to create a ramdisk and the 'copy' the programs you've selected to it. A ramdisk is 100x faster than the asus. It uses the junction points to point the OS to the proper place on the ramdrive. You cannot permanently leave the programs on the ramdrive since this uses system ram and would be emptied when the pc is turned off.

2: hybrid-disk is just their version of an SSD caching a hard drive. this technology has been around for a while now and aftermarket solutions do exist.

3: I think you meant 'If you pair a pcie ssd with an hdd to form a hybrid disk' ...

I dont think the caching software would care what type of disk it was caching as long as it doesnt exceed the 4tb limit.

From the rest of Q3, I dont beleive you have a clear understanding of what SSD caching is. All it does is keep copies of frequently read data on the SSD for quicker access. (Some caching solutions also cache writes btw.) Theres no point in drooling for a 4-drive raid0 w/SSD caching because by the time you buy 4 drives suitable for raid you'd have been better off buying a 1tb SSD to begin with.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I

irlwizard

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2011
152
0
18,680
Thanks for the reply

Something troubles me about SSD caching HDDs tho... What happens if you need to defrag? Won't you lose the link between them, everything could just screw up. I actually bought my dad a Crucial Accelerator or whatever they are called, a specific SATA based SSD catch drive and he got this problem every time he ran a cleaning utility like CC cleaner or attempted to defrag his HDD. Is this normal or did we just have bad luck? At least you know why I don't really trust it.




I disagree with this, 1TB is simply not enough space (and no, I'm not talking about mp3 and movies storage)... I have a rather large Steam library and use my PC as a home entertainment unit in raid0 atm with just two 1TB HDDs and it works better than any Corsair SSD boot-drive solutions ever has for me (but I am down to only 100GB left of space) - and I couldn't care less if a HDD broke. Non of the information on the machine is of value to me, I keep that stuf on an external and in the cloud.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I

irlwizard

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2011
152
0
18,680
"You cannot permanently leave the programs on the ramdrive since this uses system ram and would be emptied when the pc is turned off."

I knew that part, but what if you keep the computer in sleep mode when you don't use it?

And why did ASUS website say this... "ROG RAMDisk uses what are known as ‘junction points’ so THERE'S NO NEED TO RE-INSTALL YOUR SOFTWARE. Just choose an application and RAMDisk will ensure that your PC will directly access its files and data using the extreme speed of the computer’s own RAM."

Maybe I'm not really understanding what you or they (ASUS) are trying to say.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
popatim

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Dec 2, 2009
38,898
979
135,890
ok when the system looks for you file it goes to the drive. After the asus copies your file out to the ramdrime, it needs a way to tell the system to grab copy and not the original. It does that by creating a junction point that redirects the call to the ramdrive. Pretty much the same way that My Documents actually brings you to C:\users\username\documents


As for the ramdrive in sleep mode, sleep mode keeps the ram refreshed/ alive so it doesnt get lost. Many systems actually hybrid-sleep where the system state is first copied to a file on the drive. If power is lost during sleep you can still 'wake' normally, just takes a little longer as the file gets copied back to ram. I dont know what effect hybrid sleep would have on a ramdrive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
I

irlwizard

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2011
152
0
18,680
Do you happen to know a good info guide on ramdisks (preferably with diagrams) as it's a bit technical for me to understand without a lot of detail.

"goes to the DRIVE" could mean, ramdisk/ramdrive, partition, HDD, PCIeSSD etc in this scenario - you tried your best tho so I'll just pop you the best answer, I give up on this... I actually called ASUS and they said I have to email them, yet if I don't have a product I can't email them because even on pre-sale enquiries they ask for a product code, don't wanna deal with a company that has shitty hard-to-reach customer service... Than again, so does gigabyte... But ASUS basically said, in that case you have to contact your local hardware dealer, ya right, as if they will know anything about this stuf, most of the time they try to rip customers off and know less than me about hardware, I consider this advanced and new technology... end of rant...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A

amerifax

Distinguished
Sep 7, 2011
206
0
18,690
I had very similar problems recently trying to establish a RamDisk. I went everywhere trying to get good data on how to proceed. I have finally installed and love my Romex Primo Ram,Disk. I know you are looking for info back in 2013. I'd be interested in what you finally did. Romex supports RamDisk with excellent support. Their forum is also of great value. I'm getting ready to try their RamCache.
Bob
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom