12,800 MBPS SSD?!?

[SPL Tech]

Is it possible to use tons of RAM in place of an SSD via PCI-E? Like a super SSD made out of DDR3 1600? Even the slowest SDRAM is still worlds faster than the fastest SSD, so it seems like a good choice for benchmarks. I know RAM is volatile, but I suspect that problem could be solved with an internal battery.

Imagine how fast your computer would run if your entire hard drive contents was in RAM

 

[Woomack]

Main issue is separate controller which can handle all these operations. There were hardware RAM disks but none of them could run at more than ~3GB/s. Also all these transfers would be on the same bus as all other devices so expect bandwidth drop.
It's just not possible with current desktop board design.
Even if you make software RAM disk then it can only run at about 60% of memory bandwidth.
I have to try how it looks like on the X79 board ... RAM is hitting 72GB/s but only in multithreaded tests.

SSD RAID0 and good RAID controllers can make something about 6-8GB/s max but if there are all cache options enabled then bandwidth in tests can be higher. Example can be 3x Crucial M4 RAID0 on integrated SATA3 controller. It supposed to hit a wall at controller's max possible ~1-1.1GB/s bandwidth but in benchmarks you can see 1.5GB/s just because of cache.

 

[Railgun]

It's called a RAM drive or disk. Get whatever software you prefer and you're good to go. Just never shut off your PC.

 

[Charr]

It's called a RAM drive or disk. Get whatever software you prefer and you're good to go. Just never shut off your PC.

There are software RAM disk options that have automatic saving and loading on proper shutdown only, you'll lose data on sudden power off. Also be aware that they'll only load once you get to desktop; they won't help with boot at all.

Gigabyte used to sell a hardware RAM disk that had a backup battery, but it only took 4x 1GB of DDR400 sticks. Widespread availability of SSDs pretty much killed the market for them.

 

[wagex]

there was the pci ram disk which held like 4gb iirc it had an onboard battery and could hold 4 ddr ram sticks

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storag...te-SATA-Storage-Review/Gigabyte-iRAM-PCI-Card

granted it is slow compared even to today hard drives.