I-RAM II

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Varun
When they removed the PCI slot interface, they destroyed the I-Ram idea IMHO

What, why do you say that? I don't think you understand how the original i-ram worked. The original i-ram was merely powered by the PCI bus; it didn't communicate across the PCI bus. There's an SATA connector on the PCI card for data transfer. This is the main reason I didn't buy the original i-ram - not enough PCI slots to accomodate the amount of ram I needed. With this new version, I can simple buy a full-tower case and stick as many of them as I want inside, slap a raid card in a PCI slot, and call it good to go.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Varun
When they removed the PCI slot interface, they destroyed the I-Ram idea IMHO

What, why do you say that? I don't think you understand how the original i-ram worked. The original i-ram was merely powered by the PCI bus; it didn't communicate across the PCI bus. There's an SATA connector on the PCI card for data transfer. This is the main reason I didn't buy the original i-ram - not enough PCI slots to accomodate the amount of ram I needed. With this new version, I can simple buy a full-tower case and stick as many of them as I want inside, slap a raid card in a PCI slot, and call it good to go.

You have a 2nd problem, how does the new iram get power if the PSU is off ?

That was the whole reason of using PCI slot, to draw power while the unit is off.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: GrammatonJP

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Varun
When they removed the PCI slot interface, they destroyed the I-Ram idea IMHO

What, why do you say that? I don't think you understand how the original i-ram worked. The original i-ram was merely powered by the PCI bus; it didn't communicate across the PCI bus. There's an SATA connector on the PCI card for data transfer. This is the main reason I didn't buy the original i-ram - not enough PCI slots to accomodate the amount of ram I needed. With this new version, I can simple buy a full-tower case and stick as many of them as I want inside, slap a raid card in a PCI slot, and call it good to go.

You have a 2nd problem, how does the new iram get power if the PSU is off ?

That was the whole reason of using PCI slot, to draw power while the unit is off.

Yeah, I've been wondering how they're going to float that one. I don't think that the molex connectors provide any power when the computer is off, unlike the PCI card slots. Who knows, maybe they do. Even with the battery, if you don't use your computer for a few days, you're hosed unless there's some other way of providing continuous power.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Yeah, I've been wondering how they're going to float that one. I don't think that the molex connectors provide any power when the computer is off, unlike the PCI card slots. Who knows, maybe they do. Even with the battery, if you don't use your computer for a few days, you're hosed unless there's some other way of providing continuous power.

Unless theres something off the psu that we do not know about.. like a bypass or something.. the way how motherboard still draws power when it's "off". Or a really large battery..

Even with battery, one of the review said when the original iram is out of slot, the battery does not provide 16 or whatever hour it claims, the process is accelerated, the power may last 4-6 hours. Not 14 or 16 as printed on box.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: GrammatonJP

Originally posted by: Kaido

Yeah, I've been wondering how they're going to float that one. I don't think that the molex connectors provide any power when the computer is off, unlike the PCI card slots. Who knows, maybe they do. Even with the battery, if you don't use your computer for a few days, you're hosed unless there's some other way of providing continuous power.

Unless theres something off the psu that we do not know about.. like a bypass or something.. the way how motherboard still draws power when it's "off". Or a really large battery..

Even with battery, one of the review said when the original iram is out of slot, the battery does not provide 16 or whatever hour it claims, the process is accelerated, the power may last 4-6 hours. Not 14 or 16 as printed on box.

Yeah, marketers always lie I'm sure they'll have something that works. It'd certainlym make a fun project box!

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Varun
When they removed the PCI slot interface, they destroyed the I-Ram idea IMHO

What, why do you say that? I don't think you understand how the original i-ram worked. The original i-ram was merely powered by the PCI bus; it didn't communicate across the PCI bus. There's an SATA connector on the PCI card for data transfer. This is the main reason I didn't buy the original i-ram - not enough PCI slots to accomodate the amount of ram I needed. With this new version, I can simple buy a full-tower case and stick as many of them as I want inside, slap a raid card in a PCI slot, and call it good to go.

I understand completely how the I-Ram worked. If it used the PCI bus for data transfer it would have really sucked.

I thought it was nice that when your system was off, the I-Ram was NOT using the battery unless the power went out. By removing the power feature and forcing it to run on battery, I feel they made a mistake. The mistake was not that it no longer is located in a PCI slot, but that they never compensated for the loss of power. If they had an adapter card that would go in the PCI slot, and a power connector for the new I-Ram, it would have worked perfectly. Also, they could have the power connector have a connector for a second cable to power a second I-Ram, and a third etc off of one PCI slot.

If you leave your computer on all the time I suppose it would work fine, but not everyone wants to do that and the battery life is not that long.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: Varun

If you leave your computer on all the time I suppose it would work fine, but not everyone wants to do that and the battery life is not that long.

Or you could pony up the extra dough for a dedicated PSU to keep it on 24x7. 3 options:

-Look at the spec sheet, find the appropriate wall wart (prolly 12v), make adapter from wall wart to molex. Then you can even use splitters to connect multiple devices, amperage permitting.

-AT PSU

-ATX PSU modded to be always on, or switched like an AT PSU. There's two pins on the ATX harness that turn the PSU on when they're connected.

Sure, none of those solutions are cheap, but they're very marginal expenses when we're talking about hundreds of dollars for a moderately sized unit.

Side benefit: a wall wart and a suitably large UPS (1000+ VA) should be able to supply a RAM drive for days if not weeks without power.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Possible solution

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2779&p=2

Check that last asus frontlinker..

Turn off PC and still charge up your portable device..

They must have found a way through the psu.. ie how motherboard is getting power.
or tapping off something.

Anyway its probably the same way..

 

[arcenite]

Am I the only one that thinks that they could just use an external power brick that plugs into the wall??

 

[GrammatonJP]

DDR drive uses that

http://www.ddrdrive.com/ddrdrive_prototype.html

but the problem is w/o onboard battery, if you need to move the data to another PC.. u're fubar.. iram I took care of that using the battery

 

[arcenite]

Why not use both?

 

[FreedomGUNDAM]

I'm interested in the Flash HDDs, can't wait till the price come down.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Originally posted by: arcenite
Why not use both?

asking the wrong guy, you need to call the developers up..