AgigA Tech Introduces Non-Volatile DDR3 DIMMs

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

What if you could keep Windows stored entirely in RAM?

Sure, you already can and we have had solutions such as Gigabyte's i-RAM, released in 2005, for some time. But these products required an uninterrupted power supply that caters to DRAM's volatile characteristics. However, there is a new product, a DDR3 DIMM offered by AgigA Tech that is created as a non-volatile DIMM (NVDIMM).

The product uses an integrated controller to transfer the contents in the DRAM to also integrated NAND Flash. The briefly required power supply is provided capacitors, which do not require a separate battery. To recharge the capacitors, only "a few seconds" of regular power supply to the DIMM are required. AgigA Tech says that the data retention time in the DIMM is a remarkable 10 years.

At this time, the DIMMs are available in ample numbers as well as 1 GB, 2GB and 4GB capacities. There was no information when these DIMMS will become generally available and how much they will cost. However, do not expect these chips to be affordable for your desktop system anytime soon; AgigaTech said it is targeting RAID storage, servers, data deduplication, workstations, embedded systems, communications/networking, as well as industrial/medical as initial application fields.

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Wolfgang Gruener
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jim_L9
    Nice concept.
    Reply
  • bctande1
    Very interesting concept! Makes conceptualizing the HDD-free future much easier. I would like it, however, if industry can release more 30nm-based RAM, like Samsung's offerings.

    Reply
  • husker
    Malware and virus creator's wet dream. No thanks.
    Reply
  • dark_knight33
    A data security professional's nightmare, I love it.
    Reply
  • mr_tuel
    This probably has to most potential (to consumers and users) in laptops or tablets. This should help extend standby battery life since no power will be required to keep the memory contents and you don't have to write to the HDD. OTOH, SSDs makes hibernation fast, and this sounds like having SSDs built into the RAM modules.
    Reply
  • freggo
    I don't think it makes much of a difference to fudge with a Windows file on C: vs. the RAM location.
    If a hacker wants to get to it he will.

    Instead of more hacker proof it would be better to offer more incentives to Hackers to not even try!

    Reply
  • wiinippongamer
    Very interesting indeed, but buying a good SSD will probably remain much cheaper for quite a long time.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    dark_knight33A data security professional's nightmare, I love it.Would definitely be better if the Flash storage was encrypted but it's possible to recover data from the DRAM directly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence#Data_in_RAM

    It would be wonderful if the Flash was encrypted AND the DRAM overwritten at power-off.
    Reply
  • alxianthelast
    DAMN.. ignoring, speed and portability (of the flash internals and a chip you can pop out and move to another system) it sucks that they aren't available on 8 gig sticks with an optional 16/32 gig flash pool to be able to store multiple states and a fail-safe backup state. Hopefully another company will on up them with these features.

    32 gigs on 4 chips that are pooled or separate.. but to pool them might be harder or require the modules to be connected to each other (while system power is off?) hmm... many possibilities.
    Reply
  • alidan
    imagine this.
    this ram is used in tandem with system ram.
    making it more like a very high speed ssd than ram.
    Reply