I-Ram Box, HyperDrive4, MTron

O

Ockie

*** Self Proclaimed Storage King ***
Joined
Mar 2, 2005
Messages
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I am currently looking mainly at these 3 devices as my next high performance drive for my main system. I want to know you guy's input based on from your experiences. I am currently leaning towards the HyperDrive4 unit.


I found the I-Ram Box, which is essentially basically still like I-Ram1, but is bay mounted and does not consume PCI slots.

Pros:
Speed
Price ($180 per unit)

Cons:
4GB per unit memory limitation
SATA150 Limitation
Memory not included
Has battery to retain data

Hyperdrive4, smoking fast, claims it's the fastest sata drive available today.

Pros:
Incredible Speed
16GB Per unit

Cons:
Cost ($2,000+ for the unit)
Memory not included
Has battery to retain data

M-Tron SSD's, reasonable fast

Pros:
Reasonable Speed
Larger capacities
Regular HDD sized
Retains data without needing a power source

Cons:
Cost ($400-$600 per drive)
Need to raid to get even close to the HyperDrive4 performance
 
too rich for my blood any which way you look.
but i would go with the SSD. the future is going that way.

16GB seems to be good for only a few apps.
you only need your os, page file and maybe a few others on it, but still.
 
Megalomaniac said:
too rich for my blood any which way you look.
but i would go with the SSD. the future is going that way.

16GB seems to be good for only a few apps.
you only need your os, page file and maybe a few others on it, but still.
Click to expand...

In a way I do agree, especially with Vista, that 16gb becomes nothing in a matter of minutes... more storage would be greatley benificial.

I was leaning towards the SSD where as it would save me space by utelizing existing drive spaces, but the performance on the HyperDrive is incredible.
 
Thought I would poke around the net for a DRAM based SSD again, and came up with another hit. No information/recommendation, just a google hit... but at $250 for a DDR2 based 8G RAM drive, that looks like you can slave a conventional HDD to it... could be interesting.

http://www.realramdisk.com/products/sata8.php
 
The big Pro of iRam and Hyperdrive4 is the accesstime! Normaly PC-Users don´t profit from Datarates over 100MB/s., but from good accesstimes (iRam + Hyperdrive).

The big Con of iRam and Hyperdrive - NOT bootable!
 
If you're planning on spending that much might be worth just doing a ram drive, i was able to hit 2gbytes/sec sustained on my machine which only has ddr I 400mhz ram. Superspeed (pretty sure it's them), has it so it can copy the drive to the disk and load it when booting and shutting down. Seems like it'd be a cheap and decent way to go, just get a server mobo. If you use 32bit os you can use the memory not recognized for your ram drive. Just can't load your os on it.

Otherwise the ssd's are definitely the way to go, http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/ get 9 or 12 of those in a raid 5 array you'd be set, might want to get 2 or 3 areca 1231ML cards or the ones below that and strip the volume across it but you should be able to hit 1gbytes/sec -2 or 3 depending on number of drives you have.
 
Snoopy69 said:
The big Con of iRam and Hyperdrive - NOT bootable!
Click to expand...

Um........ dude, read the specs, these are seen as regular hard drives. TOTALLY bootable!

I own the original I-RAM with 4x1gb DDR400 and it works fine. I use my precious 4GB of space for virtual memory and a photoshop scratch disk.

Untitled-3.jpg
 
Actually that last video you linked to isn't that fast... I had 4 CF cards in raid0 and it would boot windows in 7 seconds... i'm counting 6 in that video... 4CF cards did 120MB/sec or something. There is some review site that had up to like 9 SSDs in raid0 doing 900MB/sec or maybe they hit 1GB/sec I forget... but there was barely any advantage past 4 drives in most/all of their real world benchmarks (os loading games loading so forth). 200-300MB/sec with no (<1ms or whatever) access time seems like the limit of usefulness.

If you look at cost/speed/size I believe raid0 SSD drives are the best. Fast enough to the point you need a benchmark to make comparisons, enough space for OS + games without needing to be anal about saving space... and its not *THAT* insane in pricing.. and top it all off no batteries. Just keep an extra drive to do backups with regularly and then no issue with raid0.

Plus you could buy 2 or 4 or 3... no reason nto to use odd number hehe, but eventually you could add more drives as costs drop or something. iRAM has been around forever and same price, still ddr1.... eventually SSD *WILL* drop more in price and you could go from 4 to 8 drives in RAID0 for the hell of it. Mixing SSD drive models should not be an issue for raid performance.

(Excuse the lack proper grammar, I'm too tired.)
 
oplin said:
If you're planning on spending that much might be worth just doing a ram drive, i was able to hit 2gbytes/sec sustained on my machine which only has ddr I 400mhz ram. Superspeed (pretty sure it's them), has it so it can copy the drive to the disk and load it when booting and shutting down. Seems like it'd be a cheap and decent way to go, just get a server mobo. If you use 32bit os you can use the memory not recognized for your ram drive. Just can't load your os on it.

Otherwise the ssd's are definitely the way to go, http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/ get 9 or 12 of those in a raid 5 array you'd be set, might want to get 2 or 3 areca 1231ML cards or the ones below that and strip the volume across it but you should be able to hit 1gbytes/sec -2 or 3 depending on number of drives you have.
Click to expand...

That is a really good review. These SSD's scale really well and they are not too expensive.
 
Those ssd's are going to be the way of the future. Those are way faster than i-ram or hyperdrive that are limisted at sata bus speeds. Completely upgradeable in the future. Trying to get work to let us try them out for some of our sql servers.
 
the problem with the hyperdrive is that it's DDR1.. and how does it cost 2000 dollars (without ram)... this is nuts..

CORSAIR, i know you're out there, why not make your own unit... i bet for 600 dollars you can easily come out with a 16GB SATAII ram drive
 
With the price of DDR2, I'm surprised someone like Crucial/Micron has not come out with a RAM drive in a 5.25 enclosure with, say, 64GB of ram and a BBU. They could take the DDR2 that failed to meet speed requirements (They would only need it to do 50MHz or so) and build their own enclosure from parts that would have otherwise been scrapped.
 
Dew said:
With the price of DDR2, I'm surprised someone like Crucial/Micron has not come out with a RAM drive in a 5.25 enclosure with, say, 64GB of ram and a BBU. They could take the DDR2 that failed to meet speed requirements (They would only need it to do 50MHz or so) and build their own enclosure from parts that would have otherwise been scrapped.
Click to expand...

You would almost have to think they have....probably multiple times. But there must be some big factor or a coupling of smaller factors that is crippling them from doing it.

I think the biggest factor is the mass consumer and their infinite stupidity. What they will see is a drive that gives them 1/10th the space at 10x the cost. Then they will compare it to the performance they get and realize it might only be 3 or 4 times. However, what they fail to see is that if they push the technology in that direction...the long term benefits might greatly outway the short term costs. But....the mass consumer IS stupid. They can't think that far ahead...much less stop themsevles from clicking the yes button that pops up on every website.
 
Trepidati0n said:
You would almost have to think they have....probably multiple times. But there must be some big factor or a coupling of smaller factors that is crippling them from doing it.

I think the biggest factor is the mass consumer and their infinite stupidity. What they will see is a drive that gives them 1/10th the space at 10x the cost. Then they will compare it to the performance they get and realize it might only be 3 or 4 times. However, what they fail to see is that if they push the technology in that direction...the long term benefits might greatly outway the short term costs. But....the mass consumer IS stupid. They can't think that far ahead...much less stop themsevles from clicking the yes button that pops up on every website.
Click to expand...

all the companies have to do is run simple ads, like.. compressing a folder, booting windows, copying files... and people will be like, wow that is fast....
 
heelix said:
Thought I would poke around the net for a DRAM based SSD again, and came up with another hit. No information/recommendation, just a google hit... but at $250 for a DDR2 based 8G RAM drive, that looks like you can slave a conventional HDD to it... could be interesting.

http://www.realramdisk.com/products/sata8.php
Click to expand...

That's awesome. Any idea on when it'll be available? Anyone feel like emailing the sales people?
 
unhappy_mage said:
That's awesome. Any idea on when it'll be available? Anyone feel like emailing the sales people?
Click to expand...

dont get to excited, it's DDR, so to fill this guy up will cost you a pretty penny.. it will end up being better to just get a 64GB Flash drive... sent them an email, it doesn't work.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

sales@realramdisk.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550
 
I emailed them too and I got the same exact failure.

I guess they don't have it and won't.

I am looking for something like this. I figure the SSD dwill have issues if I use them as a scratch disk since it only has a certain number read/writes in it before it fails.

Ryan
 
I emailed them and got a reply in a couple hours -

"Our products are targeting to release at the Q4 of this year. I will
> let you know once it is available."
 
Unless that RealRamDisk doesn't suck, I'd just stick to SSDs.

@vidoprof: You will not have issues with write endurance, unless your idea of a "scratch disk" is a space you write to 24/7 for years. It's true that NAND has a limit, but that limit is skyhigh for desktop use.
 
ozdan said:
I emailed them and got a reply in a couple hours -

"Our products are targeting to release at the Q4 of this year. I will
> let you know once it is available."
Click to expand...

Wooo! Q4 here we come!
 
The I-RAM doesn’t support SMART. Most hardware RAID cards don’t allow you to disable SMART. So unless you are using the onboard RAID controller on your motherboard, you are likely SOL, that is assuming 4GB is not enough space for you. Quite a few attempts have been made over at 2cpu.com.
 
My first benches with my new 2x Acard 9010 (Hyperdrive 5) @ ARC-1261D-ML (2GB ECC-Ram)... :p

hc_585j50g.jpg
hc_586q787.jpg

hc_58722jc.jpg
hc_588j7rb.jpg

hc_59053mp.jpg
hc_591w6sb.jpg

hc_589y5z6.jpg
hc_623apsy.jpg



I think, this is my maximum...

Left with 128k Stripesize - right mit 4k Stripesize...

hc_594o3tf.jpg
hc_5988337.jpg



Both with 128k Stripes...

hc_595d0n0.jpg
hc_59698qp.jpg



With 4k Stripes and Workstation-Pattern...

hc_597q3mc.jpg
"h2benchw"

Kapazität: CHS=(3712/255/63), 59633280 Sektoren = 29118 MByte

Interface-Transferrate mit Blockgröße 128 Sektoren bei 0.0% der Kapazität:
Sequenzielle Leserate Medium (ungebremst): 744276 KByte/s
Sequenzielle Leserate Read-Ahead (Verzögerung: 0.09 ms): 1111373 KByte/s
Wiederholtes sequenzielles Lesen ("Coretest"): 1131416 KByte/s
Sequenzielle Schreibrate Medium (ungebremst): 804949 KByte/s
Sequenzielle Schreibrate Cache (Verzögerung: 0.09 ms): 793415 KByte/s
Wiederholtes sequenzielles Schreiben: 849546 KByte/s

Dauertransferrate (Blockgröße: 128 Sektoren):
Lesen: Mittel 745075.4, Min 730063.9, Max 745839.3 [KByte/s]
Schreiben: Mittel 639024.3, Min 601786.5, Max 852058.4 [KByte/s]

Zugriffszeit Lesen: Mittel 0.04, Min 0.02, Max 0.07 [ms]
Zugriffszeit Schreiben: Mittel 0.02, Min 0.02, Max 0.04 [ms]
Zugriffszeit Lesen (<504 MByte): Mittel 0.04, Min 0.02, Max 0.06 [ms]
Zugriffszeit Schreiben (<504 MByte): Mittel 0.02, Min 0.02, Max 0.03 [ms]

Anwendungsprofil `Swappen': 353262.4 KByte/s
Anwendungsprofil `Installieren': 663891.0 KByte/s
Anwendungsprofil `Word': 564960.9 KByte/s
Anwendungsprofil `Photoshop': 794338.8 KByte/s
Anwendungsprofil `Kopieren': 795472.5 KByte/s
Anwendungsprofil `F-Prot': 238069.7 KByte/s
Gesamtergebnis: Anwendungsindex = 508.5
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
LOL that is stupid fast on the 4K writes!

One question, how does the restore from CF actually work after the first reboot from a power lose? Obviously the data would be in the CF and needs to be loaded to ram but at the same time the computer would want to start loading data from the drive. What happens then? does the 9010 lets the bios wait for hours while it repopulates the ram banks?
 
Ockie said:
I am currently looking mainly at these 3 devices as my next high performance drive for my main system. I want to know you guy's input based on from your experiences. I am currently leaning towards the HyperDrive4 unit.


I found the I-Ram Box, which is essentially basically still like I-Ram1, but is bay mounted and does not consume PCI slots.

Pros:
Speed
Price ($180 per unit)

Cons:
4GB per unit memory limitation
SATA150 Limitation
Memory not included
Has battery to retain data
Click to expand...

Don't forget this price is without RAM put in there and 4GB units aren't cheap :)

Just IMHO but since you don't seem to be limited by budget why don't you take 2 or 3 Intel 25-E or M drives in Raid 0 ?
 
All benches with ASUS Striker II Extreme 790i (Stripesize 128k)

Left 1x HD5 @ Raid 0 - right 2x HD5 @ Raid 0

hc_604c6l7.jpg
hc_603n0ul.jpg



All benches with 2x HD5 @ raid 0

hc_605s6vy.jpg
hc_608o6c1.jpg

hc_60631nr.jpg
hc_609s4qt.jpg

hc_607d7ya.jpg




Old (2x Hama/Mobi 3000 + ARC-1210)

hc_2052cvd.jpg



New (2x Acard 9010/HD5 + ARC-1261D-ML)

hc_614lcal.jpg
 
Michaelius said:
Don't forget this price is without RAM put in there and 4GB units aren't cheap :)

Just IMHO but since you don't seem to be limited by budget why don't you take 2 or 3 Intel 25-E or M drives in Raid 0 ?
Click to expand...


This is an old thread, when I asked it these drives weren't out yet :)
 
Hey Ockie ---

what did you end up doing?

I like the Intel branded SSDs.
 
The forum reset ate my question so I'll ask again:

Snoopy69, what happens when the computer tries to read files off the drive when there is a restore from CF in progress? There's no way it can be done within the few seconds waking up from days of complete power loss.
 
I don't know...
I think, when a restore is running, it´s not possible read from ram´s.

A user in our forum has a Acard 9010 too. I can ask him. ;)
But a restore is infrequently needful, when you set a jumper for ECC-Simulation (with Non-ECC-Ram´s) und your battery is ok ;)


hab in mehreren Monaten Betrieb noch keine Bitfehler bekommen, liegt wahrscheinlich daran dass das HD5 eine ECC-Emulation fährt (auf Kosten der Kapazität) wenn kein ECC-Speicher verbaut ist.
Click to expand...

Translated by google...

in several months of operation i have not yet received bit errors, it is likely that the HD5 an ECC emulation goes (at the expense of capacity) when no ECC memory is installed.
Click to expand...
 
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