Discussion and specification
So what's the i-RAM all about, then? The idea is to have a device that appears to the system as a hard disk, but uses RAM as its storage medium. RAM's fast; a lot faster than hard disks. Of course, it does have two main problems. The first is that its price-per-gigabyte is a lot higher; chances are you can't afford 250GiB of this stuff, even if you had somewhere to put it. Second, RAM has a tendency to lose its contents when powered down (although that could be about to change). So where does that leave Gigabyte's product?
Gigabyte overcomes the problem of capacity by pushing its RAM-powered storage device as a tool for storing specific files and serving particular applications, rather than hold the entire system on it. Still, let's take a look at the i-RAM's specification, then discuss what you could do with it, trying to decide whether each idea is good or bad.
There are a number of revisions to the i-RAM, the latest being rev. 1.3. We'll indicate where a feature is revision dependant.
| Power Interface | PCI 2.2 mechanical compliant slot (rev. >=1.3 Support PCI 3V & 5V Slot) |
|---|---|
| Data Transfer Interface | SATA 1.5Gb/s |
| Memory Interface | 4 DIMMs up to 4GiB total Un-buffered / Non-ECC DDR 200/266/333/400MHz Memory height up to 4.2mm |
| Backup Battery | 1,600mAh lithium battery |
| Battery level monitoring | 4-level LED battery capacity indicator (rev. >= 1.2) Battery capacity indicator button (rev. >= 1.2) |
| Dimensions | 22 x 10.4cm |
To reiterate, the rev. 1.2 adds in a battery level indicator and the rev. 1.3 i-RAM supports 3.3V or 5V PCI slots (signified by its PCI connector having two notches rather than one), too.
With up to 4GiB of storage space supported by the i-RAM, there are a number of things you could do with it. Before we take a look at how the i-RAM actually performs, and what we think about it, let's muse over some of the possibilities.
- Scratch disk - Apps. such as Photoshop often need temporary disk space for various tasks. Use some DDR RAM for this and chances are it'll speed things up significantly.
- Page file - The same principle as above, but for the whole OS. This sounds like a great idea, although it might be a good idea to have a small page file allocated to a hard disk too, just in case the i-RAM's page file disappears.
- Store highly accessed files - Maybe this is a database file, maybe its some other collection of media or other data. If it's being written to, then can a battery-backed memory store be trusted with the data? Perhaps a scheduled synching to hard disk could minimise risk.
- My Documents - Keeping your work on a speedy medium sounds like a good idea. Of course, what happens if the battery runs out? Synching schedule would again solve this.
- OS - With 4GiB of RAM installed in the i-RAM, you could put an OS on it without any trouble. Of course, it'll boot quickly and be responsive, but you run the risk of losing the entire OS if something goes wrong. Further, you've just filled your i-RAM with files, a large percentage of which aren't even being used.
There are more uses for the i-RAM. We don't doubt that. If you have any cunning uses, you're welcome to post them in this review's discussion thread. Hopefully there'll be some good ones.
On now to a look at our i-RAM board.
