4 ms·

Idea of using RAM as a block storage died when $/GB and $/IOPS dropped (with DDR3 and SSD). As you can see nobody bothered with them since 2010[0] > Also, I pr

Idea of using RAM as a block storage died when $/GB and $/IOPS dropped (with DDR3 and SSD). As you can see nobody bothered with them since 2010[0] > Also, I presume that a SATA interface to store data in RAM might have better performance than the average SSD. That totally depends on the silicon capabilities and still would be limited by the SATA. Sure, you would have a very low latency on a random IO, but anything with serious throughput (especially if the block size is small) would quickly saturate the bus. You can see it comparing SATA and NVMe drives from the same vendor and model range. And a personal anecdote - couple of years ago I did played with a software RAM drive (guess I needed something with tons of IO on a moderate sized load?) and the performance was... not good. Sure, it was a software written by some enthusiast and probably wasn't optimized, but still. Modern SSDs are around $100-150 per TB, so you would get a better size and performance just buying an NVMe drive, with something like M.2 to PCI-E adapter[1] if needed. PS of course you can just buy an old server mobo and fill it out with your RAM sticks, make a software RAM drive and expose it over Ethernet with iSCSI or FCoE... but again that wouldn't be cheaper than $100-150 NVMe drive. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_drive, under "Dedicated hardware RAM drives" [1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=m.2+PCIe+converter+card https://www.amazon.com/s?k=m.2+PCIe+converter+card

jaclaz 4y ago
More like 2014-2015, the Allone Cloud Disk: https://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/allone-cloud-disk-drive-101-reaches-half-mil-iops-computex-2015-update/ https://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/allone-c... ... not cheap ...
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  One off device by a company no longer traceable, with an outlandish price (as one comment pointed - they probably wanted a part of FusionIO pie) but only with a two slots for SO-DIMM? Dead from the start. If there was a (fulfilled) demand than there would be more devices like this, but... by 2012 the problem of a fast storage was solved by throwing loads of SSDs in some SAN (eg 3PAR 7xxx series) and of course enterprise sector preferred volatility and scalability, of which RAM-drives has none. Same with enthusiast market, WD Raptors[4] for a "fast" low/mid-tier, SSD for the fast tier. Just to be sure I checked when OCZ-VERTEX3, which is still running in T440 as a system drive, was anounced - it was ~Feb 2011. In 120Gb and 240Gb versions. It took some time to dig up the prices (I don't remember nor the prices nor the amount, heck, a decade ago): > The price of high-end 2GB DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) DRAM modules declined to US$25 in the first half of November, down 46 percent from its peak of US$46.50 in the first half of this year, according to DRAMeXchange. [0] Nov 2010 > G-Skill is offering a value DDR3 kit for $36 USD and Crucial sells their own value RAM for $34.99 over at Newegg. Considering a bit more than 3 years ago (Aprill 22, 2008 via the Way Back Machine’s snapshot of Newegg), a 4GB (2x2GB) kit of G-Skill DDR3 RAM went for $279.99, or about $560 for an equivalent amount of RAM today (8 GB 2×4 GB for $36 versus two 4 GB 2×2 GB kits for $560)! [1] Nov 2011 So even if you were somehow a visionary and would see the price drop a year or two before (ie ~2009)... at 2011 a single 8Gb stick was ~$50, so with $250 you could only get 32Gb (IF the RAM drive card was $50! and it wans't!), compared to $250 for 120Gb of Vertex 3. [2] Strange visionary who would see a DDR3 price drop, but not SSDs. I paid way less than $250 for that drive, because I bought it somewhere in 2012-2013: > Just ordered a OCZ Vertex 3 120GB after shipping, taxes and Rebate came to $87.00, ... [4] Apr 2012 [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752016/dram-prices-to-keep-falling-through-the-first-half-of-2011.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752016/dram-prices-to... [1] https://pcper.com/2011/11/ddr3-ram-now-at-all-time-low-prices-becoming-extremely-affordable/ https://pcper.com/2011/11/ddr3-ram-now-at-all-time-low-price... [2] https://www.storagereview.com/review/ocz-vertex-3-review-240gb https://www.storagereview.com/review/ocz-vertex-3-review-240... [3] https://hardforum.com/threads/ocz-vertex-3-120-any-good-87-new.1688824/ https://hardforum.com/threads/ocz-vertex-3-120-any-good-87-n... [4] it's quite telling what the last models were announced in 2012 and then quietly disappeared a mere year later: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/1tb-velociraptors-discontinued.1386540/ https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/1tb-velociraptors-di...

jaclaz 4y ago

More like 2014-2015, the Allone Cloud Disk: https://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/allone-cloud-disk-drive-101-reaches-half-mil-iops-computex-2015-update/ https://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/allone-c... ... not cheap ...

justsomehnguy 4y ago
One off device by a company no longer traceable, with an outlandish price (as one comment pointed - they probably wanted a part of FusionIO pie) but only with a two slots for SO-DIMM? Dead from the start. If there was a (fulfilled) demand than there would be more devices like this, but... by 2012 the problem of a fast storage was solved by throwing loads of SSDs in some SAN (eg 3PAR 7xxx series) and of course enterprise sector preferred volatility and scalability, of which RAM-drives has none. Same with enthusiast market, WD Raptors[4] for a "fast" low/mid-tier, SSD for the fast tier. Just to be sure I checked when OCZ-VERTEX3, which is still running in T440 as a system drive, was anounced - it was ~Feb 2011. In 120Gb and 240Gb versions. It took some time to dig up the prices (I don't remember nor the prices nor the amount, heck, a decade ago): > The price of high-end 2GB DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) DRAM modules declined to US$25 in the first half of November, down 46 percent from its peak of US$46.50 in the first half of this year, according to DRAMeXchange. [0] Nov 2010 > G-Skill is offering a value DDR3 kit for $36 USD and Crucial sells their own value RAM for $34.99 over at Newegg. Considering a bit more than 3 years ago (Aprill 22, 2008 via the Way Back Machine’s snapshot of Newegg), a 4GB (2x2GB) kit of G-Skill DDR3 RAM went for $279.99, or about $560 for an equivalent amount of RAM today (8 GB 2×4 GB for $36 versus two 4 GB 2×2 GB kits for $560)! [1] Nov 2011 So even if you were somehow a visionary and would see the price drop a year or two before (ie ~2009)... at 2011 a single 8Gb stick was ~$50, so with $250 you could only get 32Gb (IF the RAM drive card was $50! and it wans't!), compared to $250 for 120Gb of Vertex 3. [2] Strange visionary who would see a DDR3 price drop, but not SSDs. I paid way less than $250 for that drive, because I bought it somewhere in 2012-2013: > Just ordered a OCZ Vertex 3 120GB after shipping, taxes and Rebate came to $87.00, ... [4] Apr 2012 [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752016/dram-prices-to-keep-falling-through-the-first-half-of-2011.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752016/dram-prices-to... [1] https://pcper.com/2011/11/ddr3-ram-now-at-all-time-low-prices-becoming-extremely-affordable/ https://pcper.com/2011/11/ddr3-ram-now-at-all-time-low-price... [2] https://www.storagereview.com/review/ocz-vertex-3-review-240gb https://www.storagereview.com/review/ocz-vertex-3-review-240... [3] https://hardforum.com/threads/ocz-vertex-3-120-any-good-87-new.1688824/ https://hardforum.com/threads/ocz-vertex-3-120-any-good-87-n... [4] it's quite telling what the last models were announced in 2012 and then quietly disappeared a mere year later: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/1tb-velociraptors-discontinued.1386540/ https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/1tb-velociraptors-di...