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Seems like we need a USB equivalent standard to RAM sticks. I have lots and lots of old (1-2GB), intercompatible sticks sitting. Sometimes you just need the spa
by 1970-01-01 2mo ago
Seems like we need a USB equivalent standard to RAM sticks. I have lots and lots of old (1-2GB), intercompatible sticks sitting. Sometimes you just need the space and not the speed.
- undersuit 2mo agoGrab the cheapest Intel Optane M10 drive from eBay with a 1x PCI-E adapter from them too. 16GB of Swap for less than $20. The M10 are over produced and only PCI-E 3.0 2x lane devices but 16GB of DDR5 is going to cost over $200. You can do the same with USB-C M.2 adapters but the adapters cost more and eww USB for Swap, hope the device never drops.
- hdb2 2mo agoHey, I apologize for using you as tech support, but I found tons of those M10 sticks you are talking about, but what should I be looking for in terms of an adapter? All I can find are adapters listed as M.2: https://www.amazon.com/GLOTRENDS-Adapter-Aluminum-Heatsink-PA09_HS/dp/B07FN3YZ8P https://www.amazon.com/GLOTRENDS-Adapter-Aluminum-Heatsink-P...
- Computer0 2mo agoI believe the intention is for you to put it in the M.2
- undersuit 2mo agoThat's a 4 lane adapter, it'll work if you have a 4x, 8x, or 16x PCI-E slot open. This is a 1 lane adapter: https://www.ebay.com/itm/128010189845?var=429206655218 https://www.ebay.com/itm/128010189845?var=429206655218
- Melatonic 2mo agoIs that really competitive with just doing a pciexpress card with faster M2 SSD ?
- undersuit 2mo agoOptane on a cheap adapter is superior in just this Swap application because the 16GB M.2 are very cheap, the 2x lanes aren't under utilizing your 4x motherboard M.2 slot when used with an adapter, and Optane has better write endurance and latency then even the newest flash.
- Melatonic 2mo agoRead more about it. Not sure on endurance but does it really do that well on latency ? Curious if you have any resources. Some boards have a lot of spare m2
- undersuit 2mo agohttps://cdn.multitronic.fi/media/a/3/mmo_41700684_1565162938_0972_15378.pdf https://cdn.multitronic.fi/media/a/3/mmo_41700684_1565162938... I suggest using an 1x PCI-e adapter because putting a M10 in a M.2 slot is likely going to only have 2 of 4 PCI-e lanes in use. You have to figure out the tradeoff of using a Swap on your, now very expensive as well, Flash storage that may have flashier sequential read and write speeds but doesn't have the ability to sustain random read and write performance which is what a Swap is going to use the most. There are faster Optane drives that use 4 PCI-e lanes or even PCI-e 4.0, but they get pricey quickly, so you should just buy ram then. The deal is the 16GB Optane on an unused 1x PCI-e slot.
- Melatonic 2mo agoWhat about using one of those fancier enterprise Optane drives (that are also larger) either as a swap or - dedicated drive for writing or reading huge amounts of small files ? The Intel P5800x is the opposite of cheap but from tests I'm seeing the latency and performance is very impressive for some niche use cases
- undersuit 2mo ago400GB of Optane for $500 is kinda tempting now(also the E1.s form factor p5801x). I run my P5800x on my NAS for small files and metadata. They're the fastest but I wouldn't suggest running out and buying one because you're avoiding a 16GB to 32GB upgrade, RAM is still faster. Use it as a caching or swap device when you're running a LLM on a motherboard with maxed out RAM and GPU.
- jurf 2mo agoRAM over “USB” seems dangerously close to an SSD. In any case DDR3 isn’t nearly as bad price-wise and would have much better energy efficiency than stacking 1–2 gig sticks.
- eek2121 2mo agoNo, we absolutely do not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB For starters, The slowest sticks of DDR(x) are often slower than DDR(x-1). The issue is never capacity, but rather, performance. The real nonsense? USB? It's a mess. Pick a USB cable and buy it from ANY retailer, let's make it easier, buy a USB-C cable. What is the data rate (depends on cable quality and length), Does it support power delivery? If so, how many watts? (~5W requires a very different cable from ~230W), how do you know from simply looking at the cable? If you buy a cable, how can you tell what it supports by simply looking at the connector? Imagine having a box full of USB-C cables. Could you tell me how fast each of those cables are? (The cables themselves don't! Many don't have any markngs at all, and if they do, the markings could be fraudulent) RAM does not have that issue. A stick fits or it doesn't. Sure, there are a huge range of speeds, however, that range has a ballpark (JEDEC defines the ballpark, the "cartels" make the memory and push out some faster stuff). While there are definite exceptions (I was bitten by one recently), you can generally plug in a DDR5 DIMM and expect it to work in the system. The same cannot be said for USB. Some USB cables ONLY deliver power. Some only work with certain devices. I've USB-C (!!!) cables that only work with the devices they are shipped with, and even more annoyingly, the both may be true! ASUS (!!!) ships MOTHERBOARDS that can only pair with vital hardware via very specific USB-C cables (Strix Hive) and "GLORIOUS" ain't so glorious. Their mouses warn you not to use other USB-C cables, and they are right, depending on the make/model/generation, you can brick your "glorious" peripheral. No, USB nonsense needs to stay far away from anything else. Also, the reason this is a huge issue is because the memory makers are cartels. Only a few of them exist, they gang up and bully EVERYONE and nobody has ever invested money to create a competitor due to this, except China, which of course means that the U.S. and portions of the E.U. are insta-banning/trying to insta-ban, even though it is really freaking hard to install spyware on a memory module.
- haroldp 2mo ago> Sometimes you just need the space and not the speed. Your computer already supports that. It's called "swap".
- OJFord 2mo agoYeah but DDR3 was faster then and still is now - I can't imagine my M4 Mac having a slightly older version RAM would meaningfully affect me, but another 24GB of it (or whatever I have) would certainly be an improvement. CPUs have L1, L2, L3+ caches too after all.
- icedchai 2mo agoIt probably would. LPDDR5 memory bandwidth on M-series Macs is several multiples of the memory bandwidth available on DDR3 (depending on the exact chip, Pro, Max, etc... 4x to beyond 10x.) The whole system would be much, much slower.
- haroldp 2mo ago> Yeah but DDR3 was faster then and still is now USB would be the limiter for both.
- __david__ 2mo agoThey obviously did not mean not literal USB, just a standardized connector across DRAM versions/speeds.
- haroldp 2mo agoYeah, sure but... if it's real fast, lets connect SSDs to it and have real fast swap. Whatever it is will be limited to the bus speed. And that's gonna be silly compared to RAM speed.
- OJFord 2mo agoI didn't say anything about USB? If you're referring to upthread wanting RAM to be standardised like USB (not standardised on something like USB), I took that to mean backwards compatible slots. (And maybe handicapped forwards compatibility, though why would you.) M.2/PCIe is this way.
- ramraj07 2mo agoThats like saying I need a car with hotswappable engines. Sure. But you wouldn't want that car anymore.
- I_am_uncreative 2mo agoSuch a thing does exist. Look up CXL.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]