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

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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

Post by Edward Ng » Mon May 30, 2005 7:27 am

Hello, ladies and gentlemen; check this out. Seems like an interesting solution. Four slots means up to 4G by my guess, and I just did a quick check of my Windows XP Pro folder on a fairly loaded system and it only takes up 2.4Gb, plus 1.82GB for the Program Files folder; finally, Documents and Settings takes up 728MB. I believe a significant amount of space can be saved by using a smaller OS and not having as much software installed (SystemWorks Premiere, Office 2003 and Photoshop CS are the doozies).

WinXP Home on the RAM drive with a supplemental HDD drive for storage that is set to spin down after 5 minutes seems perfectly feasible to me.

Although personally, I still think it's cheaper and just as quiet to get a couple of 2.5" drives and isolate them, but for those who really want to go solid state, here's a more affordable solution than in the past. Also, this would be way faster than any HDD!

-Ed
Last edited by Edward Ng on Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

ATWindsor
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Re: Gigabyte's RAM drive card w/battery backup...

Post by ATWindsor » Mon May 30, 2005 8:04 am

Yeah even running the rest of the system over network probably will work fine, but 4 GB is abit on the small side. And 8 gigs is expensive.

AtW

elec999
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Re: Gigabyte's RAM drive card w/battery backup...

Post by elec999 » Mon May 30, 2005 3:00 pm

ATWindsor wrote:Yeah even running the rest of the system over network probably will work fine, but 4 GB is abit on the small side. And 8 gigs is expensive.

AtW
I think 4gig is more then enough to run windows xp, and a few apps. Then use a another drive for storing games, applications,etc.
THINK silence.
Thanks

frostedflakes
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Post by frostedflakes » Mon May 30, 2005 3:18 pm

Finally, an affordable RAM card.

Does this support both registered/ECC and unregistered/non-ECC DRAMs?

BobtheGreatZeta
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Additional Questions...

Post by BobtheGreatZeta » Mon May 30, 2005 5:57 pm

In addition to the above question, I'd like to know a few things...

1. What is the maximum data transfer rate of DDR200 ram? (in mb/sec)

2. Will DDR266 run on this card create problems? (I know this site does a lot of underclocking, so I figured I'd ask...)

3. What version of SATA does this use? (150mb/sec or 300mb/sec) Question #1 may help answer this...

Thanks,
BobtheGreatZeta

Edward Ng
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Re: Additional Questions...

Post by Edward Ng » Mon May 30, 2005 6:06 pm

BobtheGreatZeta wrote:In addition to the above question, I'd like to know a few things...

1. What is the maximum data transfer rate of DDR200 ram? (in mb/sec)

2. Will DDR266 run on this card create problems? (I know this site does a lot of underclocking, so I figured I'd ask...)

3. What version of SATA does this use? (150mb/sec or 300mb/sec) Question #1 may help answer this...

Thanks,
BobtheGreatZeta
1) Way faster than SATA-anything

2) I am unsure; Gigabyte has not released sufficient data on the product yet to know this.

3) Not sure on this yet, either.

-Ed

BobtheGreatZeta
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In reply to one of my earlier questions...

Post by BobtheGreatZeta » Mon May 30, 2005 6:31 pm

Here is a more specific answer to my first question above...

DDR200 ram has a maximum data transfer rate of 1600mb/sec

BobtheGreatZeta

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Post by frostedflakes » Mon May 30, 2005 6:36 pm

Exactly. In other words, the SATA interface will be the bottleneck, and there is no reason to buy anything faster than PC1600 (which is, as far as I know, the slowest DDR memory available).

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Post by Edward Ng » Mon May 30, 2005 6:37 pm

frostedflakes wrote:Exactly. In other words, the SATA interface will be the bottleneck, and there is no reason to buy anything faster than PC1600 (which is, as far as I know, the slowest DDR memory available).
That's why I said way faster than SATA-anything (1, 2 or II).

-Ed

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Post by Zar0n » Mon May 30, 2005 7:40 pm

I was looking for a solution like this.

You can get this card plus 4GB(4x1GB) for less than 300€
That is way fast and cheap that other SSD solutions. :shock:

I think there is 2gb unbuffered Dimms, so u can go up 8gb.
That covers Win+swap+main programs and 1 or 2 games :D
If that is not enough you can always buy another card. :P

The battery is no problem since my pc is always on.
Hope there will be a SATAII version soon.

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Post by sthayashi » Mon May 30, 2005 8:08 pm

It's a little disappointing that they can't take advantage of the +5Vsb line. It does look very interesting otherwise. Any idea what type of battery they use?

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Post by Arcticfox » Mon May 30, 2005 9:02 pm

frostedflakes wrote:Exactly. In other words, the SATA interface will be the bottleneck, and there is no reason to buy anything faster than PC1600 (which is, as far as I know, the slowest DDR memory available).
DDR266 support would still be nice because DDR200 RAM is very rare these days, especially in the form of 1GB non-ECC DIMM's.

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Post by perry » Mon May 30, 2005 10:52 pm

I think one of these would be neat in a HTPC application where you have lots of storage space on your network in a physical location where the lack of noise may not be as important.

The HTPC could be 100% silent by your TV, the OS on it wouldn't be important in case of an extended power outtage.. Store all your recorded shows and such on a network drive. I bet you could get a decent Linux install in 2 gigs.. Can get 512MB sticks for cheap. Minimal setup with KnoppMyth in case you do lose the data. I'd still probably figure out a way to rsync the file system monthly or something.

Also lots of interesting uses just for fast temporary storage -- and that's how I look at this, as temporary storage... moreso than normal drives.

Very cool.

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Post by Spod » Tue May 31, 2005 12:16 am

I don't see why DDR266 wouldn't work at DDR200 speeds. As long as there is an SPD setting for 100 MHz (200 MHz effective), any 184 pin DDR SDRAM DIMMS should work. Just throw in whatever's cheapest, as speed and timings won't make any difference when you're so heavily bottlenecked by the interface.

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Post by Zar0n » Tue May 31, 2005 5:17 am

Anyone found a store with 2GB unbuffered Dimms?

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Post by atomidude » Tue May 31, 2005 5:27 am

Gigabyte might have a great product here, but i don't really get it:
* why use SATA? why not use the PCI bus only? it should work, all RAID cards are being recognised at boot, all you have to do is to trick the BIOS that the RAM on the card is "the disk" attached to the fake "RAID" card. anyone, what would be the maximum transfer rate then, say using a PCI64 or even better, a PCI-E port? :D
* battery's great, but why not have an external PSU for the card, too? it shouldn't cost more than 10-15$ on the top of the card's price. and some backup software would be great (i.e. GHOST or similar) so you can rebuild the disk in minutes from the network or a HDD, if needed. battery-psu-UPS would make the solution almost as safe (if not safer) as a HDD.

my 2 cents...

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Post by Zar0n » Tue May 31, 2005 7:35 am

atomidude wrote:Gigabyte might have a great product here, but i don't really get it:
* why use SATA?
SATA is faster than PCI and no incompatible problem.
Why not PCI-E?
I guess there r not many bords with PCI-E so far...
atomidude wrote: * battery's great, but why not have an external PSU for the card, too?
I prefer like this, it's cheaper, and I'm not going to use and extern. PSU, if u prefers u can get one and easily connect it. :)

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Post by sgtpokey » Tue May 31, 2005 7:37 am

Hmm, if the setup is like the old cenatek rocketdrive, it may eat up two pci slots, once the ram sticks are populated.

Which actually makes planning for an HTPC essential, since for HTPCs you potentially are already using 2 pci slots for tv tuners, maybe another one for a wireless card. If you're a gamer you might also have a two slot video card, or you're using mostly pci cards on a pci + pci-e board.

If you have a high-quality sound card or hardware raid 5 card or anything else, you've run out of pci slots!

Sure there are alternative ways for many of these things, but planning would do you a world of good. I never thought I'd ever need to use up all my pci slots!

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Maximum PCI Transfer Rate

Post by BobtheGreatZeta » Tue May 31, 2005 7:45 am

In answer to one of the above questions, it appears that the PCI bus can only handle a maximum data transfer rate of 132 MB/sec, thus SATA is better.

BobtheGreatZeta

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Re: Maximum PCI Transfer Rate

Post by nutball » Tue May 31, 2005 7:53 am

BobtheGreatZeta wrote:In answer to one of the above questions, it appears that the PCI bus can only handle a maximum data transfer rate of 132 MB/sec, thus SATA is better.
... so long as your SATA host controller doesn't hang off the PCI bus, surely surely :?

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Post by lenny » Tue May 31, 2005 9:01 am

Centak's Rocketdrive is non bootable, IIRC. A SATA (or IDE or SCSI) interface will solve that problem.

Hope for more information on this card soon. I have way too many questions on it. But $50 is real sweet, esp. if I can find a use for my slower DDR. Of course they're only 512MB sticks...

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Hmm...

Post by BobtheGreatZeta » Tue May 31, 2005 10:21 am

Any chance of this thread getting a "sticky" and updates as they come out? It seems that this is a pretty important step towards ultra-quitet computing...

BobtheGreatZeta

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Re: Hmm...

Post by lenny » Tue May 31, 2005 10:32 am

BobtheGreatZeta wrote:Any chance of this thread getting a "sticky" and updates as they come out? It seems that this is a pretty important step towards ultra-quitet computing...
Don't think there's any value in stickying this thread yet. More concrete info should merit a mention on the news page, if not an article. For now you can click on "watch this topic for replies" at the bottom of the page if you like.

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Post by frostedflakes » Tue May 31, 2005 1:13 pm

I just saw 4GB (4x1GB) PC1600 registered ECC go for ~$120 shipped on eBay.

Hopefully these support reg. ECC memory, because it's easy to come by high-density, low-speed DDR for servers and such on eBay. If unregistered memory is our only choice, though, to get 4GB in one card PC2100/PC2700/PC3200 will likely be necessary, which is in higher demand (and will cost more).

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Post by afrost » Tue May 31, 2005 2:05 pm

I wonder if the battery backup is only for when your computer isn't plugged in to the wall.....otherwise why would you bother having it in the form of a PCI card when it communicates via SATA?

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Post by atomidude » Tue May 31, 2005 3:28 pm

i know PCI is not fast enough, but in my previous post was talking about PCI 64 or the new PCI-E. for instance, you could buy a SLI mobo and use one fast PCI slot for the disk. plenty of bandwidth then, on a 16X PCI bus!
on the other hand, since the SATA port is used for the card, why use PCI at all? just for power supply? doesn't make sense to me. as somebody said, this could be an issue in a HTPC, where you've got only one or two PCI slots.
however, Gigabyte's solution could be good enough to give it a go :)

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Post by ddrueding1 » Tue May 31, 2005 4:58 pm

4 of these with 4x1GB each in RAID-0 off the northbridge of my nForce4 board...

16GB of really fast silent storage. RAID-0 isn't a risk as a good backup system is required by the nature of the tech.

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Post by frostedflakes » Tue May 31, 2005 5:09 pm

IMO, there's no point to RAID0, as even a single card with the slowest DDR available offers considerably more bandwidth than SATA I or even II can take advantage of. However, if you wanted more storage, you could consolidate them into one large disk. But don't do it for speed.

I would also prefer a 3.5" form factor powered simply by a 4-pin, but looking at the length of the card, this just doesn't seem possible. The battery is what really adds a lot of length to the card.

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Post by nutball » Tue May 31, 2005 11:18 pm

In all honesty I think that the points made about bandwidths of memory, disc, PCI and SATA, RAID, etc. all miss the point to a large degree.

Unless you're heavily into media encoding disc drives rarely deliver their headline bandwidth; for most desktop usage they are limited by seek times during random access. RAM discs have a seek time of zero (effectively).

What's missing for me is a sort of Windows equivalent of an NFS overlay mount. It would be very nice to able to install Windows + Program Files on hard disc, have it mirrored to the RAM disc, and have the RAM disc appear as those directories overlaid on the normal C: drive.

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Post by elec999 » Tue May 31, 2005 11:36 pm

Is my guess right, the reason for using the pci is to charge the battery on the card.
Thanks

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