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RAM Disks. Basically extremely fast storage using RAM sticks slotted into a specially made board that fit in a PCIe slot. Not sure what happened to the project

RAM Disks. Basically extremely fast storage using RAM sticks slotted into a specially made board that fit in a PCIe slot. Not sure what happened to the project exactly but the website disappeared sometime in 2023. The idea that you could read and write data at RAM speeds was really exciting to me. At work it's very common to see microscope image sets anywhere from 20 to 200 GB and file transfer rates can be a big bottleneck. Archive capture circa 2023: https://web.archive.org/web/20230329173623/https://ddramdisk.store/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230329173623/https://ddramdisk... HN post from 2023: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35195029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35195029

robotswantdata 1y ago
soon will be able to buy a gigabyte AI Top CXL R5X4. PCI expansion card with up to 512gb RAM over four DIMMs.
dlcarrier 1y ago
There's now a standard for memory over a physical PCIe interface (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute_Express_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute_Express_Link) and off-the-shelf products (https://www.micron.com/products/memory/cxl-memory https://www.micron.com/products/memory/cxl-memory).
carstenhag 1y ago
You can do this in software, I tried it a few times with games and just other stuff ~10 years ago. Why would it have to be a hardware solution?
arjvik 1y ago
I’m confused why this can’t be done in software? mount -t tmpfs ram /mnt/ramdisk
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  Products to attach RAM to expansion slots have long existed and continue to be developed. It's a matter of adding more memory once all of the DIMMs are full. What to do with it, once it's there, is a concern of software, but specialized hardware is needed to get it there.
  - rzzzt 1y ago
    Also battery backup (or at least some beefy capacitors).
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
Not really needed anymore on Linux with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zram https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Zram https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Zram for most purposes. (Assuming the host has enough RAM to spare, to begin with)

robotswantdata 1y ago

soon will be able to buy a gigabyte AI Top CXL R5X4. PCI expansion card with up to 512gb RAM over four DIMMs.

dlcarrier 1y ago

There's now a standard for memory over a physical PCIe interface (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute_Express_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute_Express_Link) and off-the-shelf products (https://www.micron.com/products/memory/cxl-memory https://www.micron.com/products/memory/cxl-memory).

carstenhag 1y ago

You can do this in software, I tried it a few times with games and just other stuff ~10 years ago. Why would it have to be a hardware solution?

arjvik 1y ago

I’m confused why this can’t be done in software? mount -t tmpfs ram /mnt/ramdisk

dlcarrier 1y ago
Products to attach RAM to expansion slots have long existed and continue to be developed. It's a matter of adding more memory once all of the DIMMs are full. What to do with it, once it's there, is a concern of software, but specialized hardware is needed to get it there.
- rzzzt 1y ago
  Also battery backup (or at least some beefy capacitors).

LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago

Not really needed anymore on Linux with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zram https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Zram https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Zram https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Zram for most purposes. (Assuming the host has enough RAM to spare, to begin with)