Gigabyte i-RAM Ramdisk Preview!!

Thanks goes to AnnihilatorX for the translation:
PC Mark HDD Bench scores 60,000!

The Engineering sample uses XILINX Spartan DSP programmable chip responsible for bridging DDR RAM and JMicron JM20330 SATA controller . However, this expensive chip will likely to be replaced by Gigabyte's own i-RAM chip in retail versions

Compatibility with DDR RAM: There are 4 180pin DIMM slots, supporting 2.5V each. Maximum of 8GB address (more than most motherboards). The Gigabyte i-RAM also support RAM modules from different manufacturers, different frequencies, different latency timings with no performance hit. This is because the stock frequency of the device is only DDR 167.4 Mhz for maximum compatibility

So you can actually buy a bunch of cheap PC2700 RAM

The RAM Disk is hardware designed to run without OS support

The data safety: Even when computer is OFF, because PCI bus still supplies 3.3V to the iRAM, the iRAM will go to hibernation mode, the data will be kept safe AS LONG AS PSU is connected to mains. Even if the mains down, I-Ram has an additional 16-hour backup battery.

The battery would not normally be used. When main power is off, the battery will take over to supply the RAM with backup power. Gigabyte mentioned the power consumption of I-RAM in hibernation mode to be 100mAH, so in theory the 1600mhA battery can supply backup power for 16 hours. When power is restored, a fast recharge would charge the battery back to 80%, followed by a slow recharge for 100% recharging. The total time for a full recharge is 5 hours.

The performance of such a Ramdisk is greater than RAID 0 2* SCSI U320 15krpm HDD

Because the RAM disc is hardware designed as a native SATA disk drive, you can even install Windows on it prior to any driver support

i-RAM would still requires fdisk, format as you would with normal HDD. Support any OS you can name of, Mac OS, DOS, Linux, Windows

Data safety test:

Test bed: 4* Geil DDR400 1GB�A2*Geil DDR 400 512MB�A2*Geil DDR 400 256 and Samsung DDR266 256MB

1. Normal shutdown, PSU conntected to mains
A. OK, because PCI supplies 3VSB power for i-RAM to hibernate

2. Normal shutdown, unplug PSU from mains
A. OK, backup battery fully funtional

3. Unplug i-RAM from PCI:
A. OK, backup battery fully funtional

4. Unplug i-RAM from PCI for 12 hours
A. OK, backup battery fully funtional for 16 hours


5. Unplug i-RAM from PCI for 24 hours
A. Failed, battery depleted

6. i-RAM plugged to PCI slot, PSU to mains, backup battery removed after shutdown
A. OK, backup battery not utilised because of 3VSB power still active in PCI slot

7. i-RAM removed from PCI, battery detached
A. Failed, file data all destroyed, need reformatting

8. 1 slot of RAM removed i-RAM
A. Failed, Although FAT table shows files still present, copying the file result in error

Performance tests:

Despite being early revision of the board, the compatibility is excellent. Any combination of RAM does not affect the performance at all.

Windows XP recommends minimum HDD space of 1.37 GB. So 1.5GB of DDR RAm *should* be sufficient, given that you don't install any applications on it

Installing Windows still takes the same amount of time, CD-ROM is the bottle neck there

Fast Windows bootup:

Gigabyte i-RAM: 6.42s
Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache: 13.17s


PCMark 04 table:
G for Gigabyte i-RAM, S for Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache

HDD Score G: 57669 S: 4122
XP Start up G: 102.193 MB/s S: 7.348 MB/s
Application Loading G: 100.503 MB/s S: 5.918 MB/s
File copying G: 118.981 MB/s S: 31.152 MB/s
General HDD usage G: 90.620 MB/s S: 4.915 MB/s

The rest tests refer to disgrams in
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/iramdisk-gbt-5.htm

Note:
on the HDTach 3.0 tests, the grey bars are theorectical maximum data transfer for the INTERFACE. You can see i-Ram actually smokes the Cheetach 15000rpm drive


the i-RAM is still under optimisation process. Would still be quite some time before retail. A Ramdisk cost USD 80-100

When DDR2 becomes mainstream, hopefully unused DDR module can find a new place to live

Also you get lifetime warranty HDD. Beats it