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sata 2 would be fine but make it ddr2 and at least able to support 16gb
2.5 gb/s for 1xIf they were smart, they would of developed it for pciE (1x,2x,4x,8x,16x) even 1x is what, 800 something MB/sec in both directions?
DDR2 won't get you faster speeds on an i-RAM.
There's always the hyperdrive4 if you're desperate for 16 gigs... even if it is a few dozen times more expensive then the i-ram. No sata2 on it though, which for a relatively new product, makes virtually no sense.
If they were smart, they would of developed it for pciE (1x,2x,4x,8x,16x)
even 1x is what, 800 something MB/sec in both directions?
Doesn't matter, because unless you're raiding somehow, you aren't going to exceed the limis of the Sata interface anyhow.
What? RAM exceeds the transfer rates of sata by a good deal. Suppose you had built the i-Ram on old, slow PC-133 SDRAM. SDRAM reads or writes 8 bytes at a time, 133 million times a second. That's about 1GB/s. Serial ATA is only 150 or 300 MB/s so far. There are propositions to extend that to 600 and 1200 MB/s, but they're not expected for a few years. Only then will we exceed the transfer rate of single-channel memory that's been obsolete since 1999. If you build it from, say, dual-channel DDR2-800, that's got theoretical bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s. x16 pci-express is only 4 GB/s. You'd need 52 lanes to keep up with that device.Doesn't matter, because unless you're raiding somehow, you aren't going to exceed the limis of the Sata interface anyhow.
And added SMART, please. Then reasonable devices could interact with it.I have no idea why they scrapped the IRam 2, they could have just tweaked it a bit, added some more memory banks, allowed SATA2, and called it a day.
sorry .. but that's not making much sense
that's like saying I'm going to hook this 5000Mb/s Drive to a 300Mb/s SATA cable and not exceed the limit of that interface? hmm
Anyway, the OP was saying that they should eliminate internal DISK interaces (cables)
Go straight to the PCI/PCI-E bus. This should be easy, it's generaly what a RAID or SCSI controller card is doing ... right ?
unhappy_mage said:What? RAM exceeds the transfer rates of sata by a good deal. Suppose you had built the i-Ram on old, slow PC-133 SDRAM. SDRAM reads or writes 8 bytes at a time, 133 million times a second. That's about 1GB/s. Serial ATA is only 150 or 300 MB/s so far. There are propositions to extend that to 600 and 1200 MB/s, but they're not expected for a few years.
Here you go.No, I haven't seen a single raid, or scsi controller that didn't have cables going to the harddrives. , so I don't know what the hell you are talking about. Please find me a raid controller, or scsi controller that has no DATA CABLE ports on it.
It's not what I was saying, but one could easily make a sata controller part of the gadget. Pci or pci express sata controller chips abound, and all you'd have to do is slap one on and hardwire the existing card to it.There's more tech (no, it's not impossible to do...) to making that thing you throw in the slot act as a drive without needing an interface cable, but I don't think that's what you were saying.
131.9 MB/s is better than PCI can do. 133 MB/s is the theoretical limit, but 120 MB/s is about all you can hope for in real-life usage. This is pushing the limits of the 150 MB/s bus the I-Ram is on.My experience with the I-Ram was that it NEVER came close to being able to control data ANYWHERE near the specification limits of of the STORAGE PROTOCOL (i.e. there are no i-rams doing 150 or 300 megabytes a second, no matter how fast the ram you put on them is), The numbers I've seen have also been SLOWER than the port (i.e. pci) interface's capabilities.
Sata 1, actually - 1.5 gbps. And I wasn't suggesting that the I-Ram would be faster if it were pci express, just that it would be faster if it had a faster interface. Pci express x4 is faster than any sata interface, so it makes a good example of a fast bus.The actual data transfers on the iram occur over the INTERFACE CABLE, which is still capped at Sata2 speeds. It doesn't matter if you plug it into a PCI-E x 1024 port that can do 4 terabytes a second of data, because the device doesn't output data faster than the storage protocol (sata) specs, because the port (no matter if it were pci, isa, pci-x,, pci-e x1, pci-e x4, pci-e x8, or pci-e x16) does not DO the data transfers. The transfers still occurs over that little red plug.
Sure, no argument there.Now, if they design an i-Ram or any other device that transfers the data over a PCI-E port (i.e., it wouldn't have, need, or use "sata" conventions) then it would be faster, but only if they coupled it with a PROTOCOL that's faster.
If you build a ram based device that can transfer 40 bajillion terabytes of data a second, AND then you plug it into a SATA2 port, you're STILL only going to get 300 mb/s
Until they figure out how to make a "storage protocol" that can actually SEND data faster than 300mb/s (although there are ones that do that) it makes NO SENSE to plug a device into a port that can do 12.8 gigs a second, if the PROTOCOL CAN'T HANDLE THAT SPEED.
Well, I'm glad you agree, but I'd appreciate it if you'd agree a little less aggressively.me said:RAM exceeds the transfer rates of sata by a good deal. Suppose you had built the i-Ram on old, slow PC-133 SDRAM. SDRAM reads or writes 8 bytes at a time, 133 million times a second. That's about 1GB/s. Serial ATA is only 150 or 300 MB/s so far
Yes. There's no need to be condescending. Your previous post made it sound like you don't, so I pointed out some flaws in that reasoning.Understand?
If Gigabyte built a device like µmem has, they would indeed do full bus transfer rates.Only by bringing up the protocol, will you get more out of the device. So, you'd need "Sata version 5" or "Scsi 1280" or "Pata-2000" to get your data OUT of the ram, and OUT of the PCI-e port any faster.
You still have to plug the drives into your motherboard. This device co-opts the onboard scsi ports and they become pass-through. By your own statement, the other poster is looking for a "Cable free" design. There's still cables with Zero Channel.ME said:No, I haven't seen a single raid, or scsi controller that didn't have cables going to the harddrives. ,
You'd HAVE to do so, or it wouldn't work.unhappy_mage said:It's not what I was saying, but one could easily make a sata controller part of the gadget. Pci or pci express sata controller chips abound, and all you'd have to do is slap one on and hardwire the existing card to it.
unhappy_mage said:133 MB/s is the theoretical limit, but 120 MB/s is about all you can hope for in real-life usage. This is pushing the limits of the 150 MB/s bus the I-Ram is on.
unhappy_mage said:Sata 1, actually - 1.5 gbps. And I wasn't suggesting that the I-Ram would be faster if it were pci express, just that it would be faster if it had a faster interface. Pci express x4 is faster than any sata interface, so it makes a good example of a fast bus.
unhappy_mage said:If Gigabyte built a device like µmem has, they would indeed do full bus transfer rates.
Really? Do you have a link that shows what you're talking about happening? I've played with a lot of different machines and a lot of PCI buses, and never got sustained transfer rates over 120 MB/s. Could the 133 MB/s figure be margin of error? I suppose it could also be 133 decimal megabytes, as that'd be 126 MB/s and change.PCI is saturable at 100% efficiency, as has been shown with scsi cards that hit precisely the 133.3 mb/s (although I've personally gotten a benchmark of 136 megabytes a second out of a scsi array.. but I chalked it up to margin of error, that same array, when moved to pci-x pulled over 250mb/s, so, I know where the wall can be hit..).
Nope, you get an 8gb thing that looks like a disk to the OS. I don't know what OSes they have drivers for, but it came up in a Solaris discussion forum, so that's one of them. But it appears as a normal block device to the OS in that case.I'm unfamiliar with this product, so, I can't comment on it. My preliminary look into it, makes me think that it won't get a drive letter, and only works as a very large drive cache, basically extending itself as an upgrade to, say, the 16mb cache on a seagate 7200.10.. but you won't get a 16 gigabyte C:\ out of this thing.
But then you need more sata ports to use the thing. And making it optional would drive costs up even more. Not many people bought the I-Ram, or they'd've made the I-Ram 2 actually come out.What they should/could do is design the i-Ram2 (or i-Ram 3) to be a Raid0 device (optional), and have each memory slot have it's own sata2 channel, so you'd be able to effectively have a "4 drive" raid0, and your total throughput would be increased. - That is something I'd like to see.
No harm done, no offense meant and none taken.I apologize if my tone was aggressive. Sometimes I mean it to be, sometimes I do not. In this case, I did NOT mean to be aggressive or condescending.
I don't think so... but good luck, and let me know what you find out Also, they don't use "sticks" of memory - take a look at the user manual for the ram-san 400, which is all the tera ram-san really is - 8 of those suckers stacked. Anyways, page 110 shows the boards they really do use. They look like PCI-X cards, with enough chips for 8 sticks of ram on them (assuming they're double-sided). Making their own circuit boards probably drives costs up a bit, but it's probably a drop in the bucketI asked for a quote, i could be pleasantly surprised and find it only in 6 figure range
Personal experience. Not a website link handy, but I'm sure one could be foundReally? Do you have a link that shows what you're talking about happening? I've played with a lot of different machines and a lot of PCI buses, and never got sustained transfer rates over 120 MB/s.
If true, then that's interesting. I could not find anything on the site you gave that confirmed that.unhappy_mage said:Nope, you get an 8gb thing that looks like a disk to the OS. I don't know what OSes they have drivers for, but it came up in a Solaris discussion forum, so that's one of them. But it appears as a normal block device to the OS in that case.
Yes, I realize that. But if it's an "all internal" card and all the sata2 negotiation is happening internally, then there'd be no extra cabling, just 4 sata channels in a chip (or multiple chips, if needed) that then gets pushed down that pci-e x4 slot.unhappy_mage said:But then you need more sata ports to use the thing. And making it optional would drive costs up even more. Not many people bought the I-Ram, or they'd've made the I-Ram 2 actually come out.
Goodunhappy_mage said:No harm done, no offense meant and none taken.
I was just gauging pricing based on what "4 gb stick of ram costs" I am sure theyunhappy_mage said:I don't think so... but good luck, and let me know what you find out Also, they don't use "sticks" of memory - take a look at the
unhappy_mage said:user manual for the ram-san 400, which is all the tera ram-san really is - 8 of those suckers stacked. Anyways, page 110 shows the boards they really do use. They look like PCI-X cards, with enough chips for 8 sticks of ram on them (assuming they're double-sided). Making their own circuit boards probably drives costs up a bit, but it's probably a drop in the bucket
unhappy_mage said:Edit: This press release cites an entry price of $28k for the RamSan 300. That's probably the 16GB version, or about $1750 a gigabyte. Ouch.
The cluster that run EVE-Online is about to get a third RAMSan 400 added for the database. But then again that is 30k+ users connected to it.
Their "device drivers" page mentions that they're block device drivers.If true, then that's interesting. I could not find anything on the site you gave that confirmed that.
That'd work. But it'd probably be simpler to leave sata and raid out of it all together. Some emulation in software could probably make it look like you had a real disk behind a real controller, but having a whole internal sata bus is probably more work than is necessary.Yes, I realize that. But if it's an "all internal" card and all the sata2 negotiation is happening internally, then there'd be no extra cabling, just 4 sata channels in a chip (or multiple chips, if needed) that then gets pushed down that pci-e x4 slot.
Or perhaps they sell it full of old low-density memory to save on costs.As the san-400 comes in 32-128 gb denominations, and has 16 memory board slots (as seen on page 12), I am going to assume that each one of those blades are 8 gigs. (and their design must require 4 modules minimum, or maybe just their sales department does)
"Half" is good enough for me, thanks The big brother starts at 65 and goes to $220k.That's not that bad when you consider it's value and speed. You couldn't get that sort of speed with a physical disk array without having to considerably increase the space requirements, and power requirements. But the san300 is half as effective as the 400.
Yeah, 480 drives at, say, 9 watts active, would be 4320 watts. But 480 drives would also be 35 TB. It wouldn't fit into 3u, but it'd only cost $86400... You can fit 32 of those drives into this (using these, which means you need 15 of them. That's more than one rack. It's an interesting thought, anyways. One chassis-full of 10k.1s costs $180*32=$5760 for disks, $250*8=$2000 for cages, and around $500 for case and power supply. You're at $8260 per box already, without accounting for controllers or cables. That'd probably push it to $10k per box. But being the first one on your block with a fully populated SAS domain would be pretty coolThe teraSan, with it's 8 devices, requires only 2500 watts. and can output 24 GIGABYTES a second.
It'd take 480 harddrives to do that, working at 100% efficiency with a 50megabyte per second sustained throughput. Think of the physical space for 480 harddrives, and the power consumption thereof, and the task of wiring 480 drives, and cooling them.
... snip ... 480 drives ... snip ...
I just ordered 4GB of RAM for my system to see if I can set up a Gentoo filesystem in a 3.25GB RAMdisk, then chroot to it and use it as a normal system. I'll have to work out something that will sync changes between the ramdisk and my hard disk, maybe using rsync or something. There's no real purpose here - RAM is cheap and playing around is fun.
of course, they could, but:Wow that is crazy fast.
Couldn't Gigabyte release a new i-RAM with 3 gb/s interface and have multiple sata ports on the card?
that is a problem and most likely the reason why they do not. I doubt that the iRAM was selling like hotcakes and surely Gigabyte is in the market to make money. If their market analysis says that creating a new version of the iRAM is not a sound business idea, why should they make it?since I can't afford one right now
if they made a version that was sata2 or better yet pure pcie (at least 4x) and at least 8gb of ddr2 then I'm pretty sure there would be market for them. Heck I know i would be in for at least 2.