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

The I · Post by **The I** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 11:41 am

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...

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 11:49 am

Uhm...

The I wrote:

You're getting it all wrong about the SATA-thing

I can only assume you are joking so I will jokingly quote:

... Did you read any of this thread?

teknerd · Post by **teknerd** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:56 pm

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,
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

The Instigator · Post by **The Instigator** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:57 pm

Im sure you're right, I. Those conversations I had with the Gigabyte rep were wrong and he had no idea what he was talking about. Thank you so much for clearing up the confusion with your godly knowledge of unreleased products.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:27 pm

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.

-Ed

teknerd · Post by **teknerd** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:48 pm

wow, Ed explains it so much better than i do. I guess thats why he works here.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:57 pm

Eh, work is a relative term in this case.

-Ed

marius7 · Post by **marius7** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 10:09 am

So, nothing new ?

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 10:15 am

Nope. Just me stalking the thread and every online store waiting for one.

wjdashwood · Post by **wjdashwood** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:06 am

I've just come across all these threads on this iRam doofer. When is the thing gonna be available here the UK? I was going to go down a Compact Flash/IDE boot drive but this looks even better.

rabident · Post by **rabident** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:31 pm

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:18 pm

More crickets... what's going on with this thing?!?

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:20 pm

You sure that's not coil whine?

bfg9000 · Post by **bfg9000** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 12:53 pm

Claimed ETA is now December. New review here: http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?d ... 20&dPage=1

wjdashwood · Post by **wjdashwood** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 1:02 pm

Well that's my xmas pressie sorted!

carvecream · Post by **carvecream** » Fri Oct 21, 2005 9:59 pm

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.

theyangster · Post by **theyangster** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 6:55 pm

apparantly it's now out

for

160....

wjdashwood · Post by **wjdashwood** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:58 pm

$ or £?

theyangster · Post by **theyangster** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 1:11 pm

I think $US

http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/7/1/448/11449

only place and very expensive.... $190

wjdashwood · Post by **wjdashwood** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 2:09 pm

I think I'll wait to see if it turns up cheaper.

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:07 pm

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

wjdashwood · Post by **wjdashwood** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:58 pm

Fantastic! They obviously believe they have a strong product idea even before it's hit the shelf. I'll be waiting for the updated version of course.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:30 am

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.

PizPump · Post by **PizPump** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 8:19 pm

Version 1.1 coming out in a few days!!

Goodbye Raptor whine!!

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 10:06 am

I'll believe it when I see it.

I've been waiting for one of these for a few months now.[/i]

aug1516 · Post by **aug1516** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 6:36 pm

No kidding. Now that it's finally seems to be making it's way into the retail channels they release information about a better one with greater capacity and possibly speed. Looks like I'm waiting again.

PizPump · Post by **PizPump** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:12 pm

Not me...going to take what I can get now.

One step closer to total silence!!!

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:52 am

In Stock!

http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/7/1/448/11449

PizPump · Post by **PizPump** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:39 pm

Are you sure?

Looks like they're still back-ordered...

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:15 pm

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.