i-RAM II?

[Idontcare]

From Tech Report: Gigabyte boosts i-RAM speed, capacity

Reports that Gigabyte is going to be releasing a ramdisk product that supports SATA-II and uses DDR2 dimms.

Anyone know if this has been confirmed, and when the ETA is for these products to be available for purchase?

I am about 2 weeks from pulling the trigger on buying an i-RAM drive (or two).

- Phil

 

[Rubycon]

If they made them in native PCI-X or PCI-E 4X or higher they would have some serious bandwidth. Of course the smaller sized ram drives seem to do well with the seemingly limited bandwidth of SATA-150. Get into the 64GB range and that will change.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
If they made them in native PCI-X or PCI-E 4X or higher they would have some serious bandwidth. Of course the smaller sized ram drives seem to do well with the seemingly limited bandwidth of SATA-150. Get into the 64GB range and that will change.

I am hoping bandwidth is resolvable via Raid-0 striping to a nice fast PCIe 8X Areca raid card, and this will also help the array size.

But hardware must be available before anything can be done.

Wish I knew someone at Gigabyte, I'd give them a call just to find out the roadmap.

 

[Juno]

now i want one! :Q

 

[Baked]

Looks nice, but I wouldn't know what to do w/ that kinda speed.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

I am hoping bandwidth is resolvable via Raid-0 striping to a nice fast PCIe 8X Areca raid card, and this will also help the array size.

But hardware must be available before anything can be done.

Wish I knew someone at Gigabyte, I'd give them a call just to find out the roadmap.

That should be interesting. I know that hardware controllers with fast processors and loads of cache speed up i/o tremendously with conventional mechanical disks, but with a solid state drive I'm not sure what kind of results to expect. The STR would obviously be higher but random throughput could be lower. It's hard to tell without playing and that's what you have to do when you want the best.

Originally posted by: Baked
Looks nice, but I wouldn't know what to do w/ that kinda speed.

I've never had a problem with too much speed.

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
If they made them in native PCI-X or PCI-E 4X or higher they would have some serious bandwidth. Of course the smaller sized ram drives seem to do well with the seemingly limited bandwidth of SATA-150. Get into the 64GB range and that will change.

I am hoping bandwidth is resolvable via Raid-0 striping to a nice fast PCIe 8X Areca raid card, and this will also help the array size.

But hardware must be available before anything can be done.

Wish I knew someone at Gigabyte, I'd give them a call just to find out the roadmap.

Where do you get that an Add-On Card would be any faster than the ON PCB SATA Solutions ??

846 MBps is the best that you will get with the Areca .

With Each ON PCB SATA Controller Your Theoretical Max is 3 Gbps apply the 2/3rds (4 Sigma) rule. = 1.98 Gbps

Even If The I-ram - 2 delivers Max. Bandwidth.... 300MBps x 4 = 1.20 Gbps

The Areca is a Bottleneck... Plain and Simple...

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
If they made them in native PCI-X or PCI-E 4X or higher they would have some serious bandwidth. Of course the smaller sized ram drives seem to do well with the seemingly limited bandwidth of SATA-150. Get into the 64GB range and that will change.

I am hoping bandwidth is resolvable via Raid-0 striping to a nice fast PCIe 8X Areca raid card, and this will also help the array size.

But hardware must be available before anything can be done.

Wish I knew someone at Gigabyte, I'd give them a call just to find out the roadmap.

Where do you get that an Add-On Card would be any faster than the ON PCB SATA Solutions ??

846 MBps is the best that you will get with the Areca .

With Each ON PCB SATA Controller Your Theoretical Max is 3 Gbps apply the 2/3rds (4 Sigma) rule. = 1.98 Gbps

Even If The I-ram - 2 delivers Max. Bandwidth.... 300MBps x 4 = 1.20 Gbps

The Areca is a Bottleneck... Plain and Simple...

Mr Fox,

I am inclined to listen, sounds like it is time for me to go do some math.

I always assumed (experience + passive web-review memories) that the overhead of running raid-arrays on the integrated SATA controllers severly limited to the performance one could achieve over the add-in cards.

Kinda amazing to think folks are selling $900+ raid cards that underperform the integrated chips on their mobo.

Something doesn't seem right here, but you took the time to post the info so I will take the time to re-assess my plans...

- Phil

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Mr Fox

Where do you get that an Add-On Card would be any faster than the ON PCB SATA Solutions ??[/b]

846 MBps is the best that you will get with the Areca .

With Each ON PCB SATA Controller Your Theoretical Max is 3 Gbps apply the 2/3rds (4 Sigma) rule. = 1.98 Gbps

Even If The I-ram - 2 delivers Max. Bandwidth.... 300MBps x 4 = 1.20 Gbps

The Areca is a Bottleneck... Plain and Simple...

Mr Fox,

I am inclined to listen, sounds like it is time for me to go do some math.

I always assumed (experience + passive web-review memories) that the overhead of running raid-arrays on the integrated SATA controllers severly limited to the performance one could achieve over the add-in cards.

Kinda amazing to think folks are selling $900+ raid cards that underperform the integrated chips on their mobo.

Something doesn't seem right here, but you took the time to post the info so I will take the time to re-assess my plans...

- Phil

Dang, I just checked my mobo stats P5W64 WS and Mr Fox is right:

Intel ICH7R controller supports:
- 4 x SATA 3.0Gb/s (RAID 0,1,10,5)
- 1 x UltraDMA 133/100
Marvell 88SE6145 supports:
- 3 x SATA 3.0Gb/s (RAID 0,1,10)
- 1 x eSATA 3.0Gb/s

I feel like Ross Patterson in The New Guy after DJ Qualls kicks him in the nads and then says "whose...the...biotch...now...?"

Touche' Mr Fox, Touche'.

Now I need to figure out why the hell I convinced myself I needed this Areca. So goes the easy-come/easy-go cash I guess.

 

[Rubycon]

The RAID cards offer more than bandwidth. With mechanical disks they provide much higher random throughput than a disk chained to the motherboard. This doesn't benefit the average (desktop) user but it sure will for those that need it.

EDIT: Oh and I don't like that Marvell controller at all. There is no way to specify stripe size! :| The Intel controller flies though.

 

[pkrush]

The only problem that I see with this is that unlike the original, it needs to run off battery power when the computer is off but still plugged in. The original one drew power from the 5 volt standby line while the computer was off.

 

[Idontcare]

Ah yes, now I remember why the math worked out such that I was convinced the Areca what the right direction for me to go:

Onboard SATA
3 Gb/s = 0.375 GB/s = 384 MB/s

Areca ARC-1231ML
847 MB/s = 0.827GB/s = 6.6 Gb/s

I'd rather assemble a raid-array which saturates a 6.6 Gb/s bus than one which saturates a 3 Gb/s bus.

Edit:
Dug up the PCIe specs:

PCI Express

1x PCIe = 2.5 Gbit/s

8x PCIe = 8 * 2.5 Gbit/s = 20 Gbit/s

Now I remember (again) why I wanted to build my ramdisk array on an Areca :laugh: