Microprocessor's have always been the performance kings, thanks to new chip fabrication technologies, higher clock speeds, and multiple cores.
On the other hand hard drives have struggled to overcome mechanical latencies related to spinning platter's at 1000's of rpm. Hard drives have grown smarter by using command queuing and in RAID arrays.
Whatever said and done they are still the slowest component's of a PC.
Now, users have another choice on horizon, solid-state storage devices that substitute silicon for spinning platters. Such devices shed the mechanical shackles that limit hard drive performance.
i-RAM, is a solid state-storage device that plugs into your motherboard's SATA port, it supports up to four DDR SDRAM modules.
The best part is, once connected it behaves like a normal hard drive without the need for additional drivers or software.
Gigabyte first demoed the i-RAM at Computex last summer, and cards have finally made their way to the North American market.
Usage :
Specs :
Cons :
Future :
i-RAM, packed to the gills with 4GB of OCZ Value Series memory
On the other hand hard drives have struggled to overcome mechanical latencies related to spinning platter's at 1000's of rpm. Hard drives have grown smarter by using command queuing and in RAID arrays.
Whatever said and done they are still the slowest component's of a PC.
Now, users have another choice on horizon, solid-state storage devices that substitute silicon for spinning platters. Such devices shed the mechanical shackles that limit hard drive performance.
i-RAM, is a solid state-storage device that plugs into your motherboard's SATA port, it supports up to four DDR SDRAM modules.
The best part is, once connected it behaves like a normal hard drive without the need for additional drivers or software.
Gigabyte first demoed the i-RAM at Computex last summer, and cards have finally made their way to the North American market.
Usage :
- Just populate the card with memory, plug it into an available PCI slot, attach a Serial ATA cable to your motherboard.
- There's no need for drivers, extra software, or even Windowsâ€â€the i-RAM is detected by a motherboard BIOS as a standard hard drive.
- i-RAM behaves like a standard hard drive, you can even combine multiple i-RAMs together in RAID arrays
Specs :
- Gigabyte equips the i-RAM with four DIMM slots, each of which can accommodate up to 1GB of unbuffered memory.
- The card is sold without DIMMs, giving users some flexibility in how it's configured. However, most will probably want to shoot for that 4GB maximum.
- To allow users to unplug their systems for periods of time and to protect against data loss due to a power failure, i-RAM comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery that packs 1600 milliamp-hours of power, it can keep four 1GB DIMMs powered for more than ten hours.
Cons :
- i-RAM will lose data if the power is cut(draw's enough juice from PCI slot to keep its four DIMM slots powered, even when the system is turned off, although the power supply must be turned on).
- Performance is undoubtedly constrained by the 150MB/s Serial ATA interface, SATA 300MB/s not supported.
- Populated 4GB i-RAM drive would cost $500. That's a horrific cost per gigabyte for a hard drive.
- Without support for 2GB modules, the i-RAM hits a capacity ceiling at 4GB.
Future :
- Should move to a i-RAM that taps the bandwidth of multiple PCI Express lanes, that way throughput would be far greater than 300MB/s of SATA.
- i-RAM is faster than any other storage solution, performance oscillates between impressive and awe-inspiring, and for those niche markets that demand blistering I/O, the i-RAM may be just the ticket.
i-RAM, packed to the gills with 4GB of OCZ Value Series memory
