I have 512Meg of SDRAM lying about and I was thinking of things I could do with it. Suddenly I thought "how about making a RAM drive?", now I have no idea if this is possible and if so how. So I was wondering if you guys good gimme any input. Does any one know anywhere that sells PCB's that have RAM sockets, an IDE connection, and a bakcup battery? If so where?

What exactly do you hope to use this 'RAM Drive' for?

<font color=green><b><i>Lizards</font color=green></b> do <b>not</b> taste like <b><font color=yellow>chicken</font color=yellow></b>,<b> <font color=yellow>chicken</font color=yellow></b> tastes like <font color=green><b>lizard.</b></font color=green></i>

I RAM drive is basically a hard drive that uses RAM instead of a magnetic disk. The problem with RAM is it gets wipped when you turn off your computer, but RAM drives use battery back up or a different power supply to keep em going.

I was thinking of putting my OS on it, windows would load up increadibly fast then. I mean think about it the maximum transfer rate of a hard disk is about 50MB/sec. Even 133Mhz SDRAM can transfer at 1000MB/sec! + Hard disk access time is normally about 9ms while RAM is in the Nano seconds!

That you did ned my son.

OK. Gotit. I'll wait on the OS to load from the HDD. Gives me time to turn on the desk light and pull out my paperwork from the drawer.

I think you can take speed to a diminishing return, wouldn't you agree?

Pavelow

Dell 8250, i850e, 4xAGP, 2.4ghzCPU, 512mbPC1066RDRAM, 112gbATA, GeF4MX420, SBL5.1, SamSung 48xCDRW, LiteOn 851S DVDRW
RJ-45 to Compaq 9660, 233mhzCPU, 104mbFPRAM, 12mbVoodoo2, Win95a

Ok I have found another manufacturer that makes these memory boards. However I cant find anywhere that sells them.
The companies web site is <A HREF="http://www.micromemory.com/contact.html" target="_new">http://www.micromemory.com/contact.html</A> and the product I was looking at is the MM-5410D. Can anyone find somewhere that sells this?

Those are 64-bit 66MHz cards mostly. That's 4x the transfer rate of a standard PCI bus, but would have to be backwards compatable to the standard bus in order to work on a standard PC motherboard. So you'd still get 133MB/s instead of 533MB/s.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

I haven't used a RAM drive since the mid 90s. It was a way to make a really fast accessing drive. It was sorta handy.

"A delayed game will eventually come out, a bad game is bad forever."
-Shigeru Miyamoto

I didn't make a dedicated system for one. I just allocated some of my system memory to make an F: drive, then copy a game in and play.

"A delayed game will eventually come out, a bad game is bad forever."
-Shigeru Miyamoto

couldn't they use pci-e or SATA interface, I would love to find one of these drives, I have found some for silly money but it doesn't seem like it should be that much? (needs mass production)

please let us know how the PC as ram drive goes as its v interesting idea

woo... this was easier in the ms-dos days I remember gaming from that huge 2mb ramdrive

Abit IC7 Max II Adv.- P4E3.0@3.6 - CNPS7000B-CU - i875P - 1024mb dual ddr400 3-2-2-5 - Leadtek 6800 128mb@380/850 - 600W dualfan(front/rear) PowerTek Psu - maxtor 4K080H4 & 6Y120P0 - samsung sm-352b

Yeh thats the problem, its so expensive and so unjustified. My idea =
2xGigabit network cards - £30
Old P2 450Mhz - free
1-2GB SDRAM (If I can get some) - 512 already got knows how much for more from Ebay

This would give me a networked RAM drive with 1-2Gb capacity and a maxium transfer speed of 130MB/s this is still 3 times faster than most conventional drives.

I was reading an article from one of my dads PC magazines that shows how to boot from a networked computer. I shows how to boot to DOS and it next months edition will show you how to boot to windows. Only problem is the bootable server needs to act as a DCHP server, which conflicts with my router. So I will have to put it on a different subnet to my main network. It is going to take a lot of work to get it up and running.

Yeh I think so, as long as crosover cables work on gigabit networks. All I have to do is install a second network card in my main PC and try and find myself some cheap SDRAM...Anyone got any SDRAM going cheap in the UK?

Hopefully yes, either that or use the net drive for a swap file. But I will need at least 1.5Gig for that.

Yeh but when I add that to the cost of the network cards thats about £60...hmmmmmm....we shall see. Might just try it with 512MB just to see if the performance increase is justified. Then if it is, I will get myself another gig (if the motherboard supports it).

If you have any links to sites that provide this software that would be wicked.
Does anyone know if cross link cables work with gigabit network cards? What quality cable do I need for a gigabit network? Is cat5e fine?

Unfortunatly the only coding I have ever done was with delphi and visual basic. So that could prove to be a bit of a problem.

I'm kinda late to the party, but you might want to check out this: <A HREF="http://www.hyperos2002.com/" target="_new">up to 16GB RAMdrive with ATA100 interface</A>. Main downside: 400GBP. It also has a second IDE port that allows it to back itself up. A few other cool features, too. Another downside: you still have your extra SDRAM to do nothing with.

EDIT: you actually can use your modules. The picture is the picture of the last-gen version (and I didn't read the full description).

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Vapor on 12/05/04 08:25 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

£400 is a little outta my price range. I just dont understand why they cost so much! Ah well on with project REMOTE RAM DRIVE!

Yeh I understand why this one costs so much, but i was looking at 2GB cards that cost £1600! What I really want is a company that makes the cards but lets you install your own RAM. If they could make a card without RAM for about £60 then I would'nt hesitate to buy it.

Unfortunatly that program looks about as expensive as the RAM drives I was looking to buy, lol.
How hard would it be to write a small program that copies the contents of one drive to another location when the computer is idle?

Send it to me and I'll put it in my stepkid's computer.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

You wouldnt be encouraging me to do anything illegal would you Ned?

Out of the kindness of his heart my Dad ordered me 3 gigabit network cards and a gigabit switch. So I will be able to get started on my RAM drive tomorrow hopefully. Woo!

The whole point of the exercise is to get the fastest hard disk possible. USB has a maximum transfer rate of 480Mb's which is only 60MB/sec...not much better than what a hard disk can provide.

Love the topic: lightning fast storage access. Realized the tremendous speed increase possible with RAM instead of HDDs a long time ago.

Hmmm, how bout the latest Firewire? sorry, don't know any firewire-stick-drive-thingys, but just adding to the brainstorm. I believe firewire B is up to 1.2Gbps... o nevermind my textbook says nothing manufactured yet for it. (its just "designed" for that speed) And in reply to the class of cable for gigabit, 5e is required for gigabit.