Fully in-memory SQL can also be accomplished using IMOLTP via MS SQL Express on Linux now as well. And you get a fairly feature complete engine along with multithreaded execution, no blocking, and some great client options. The only limits right now are 4 cores and ~350MB of in-memory data per database.
My memory is a bit fuzzy right now, but isn't mysql itself providing that since forever too? Or do you fully in memory db - with a hard copy on the hard drive?
To answer your other question, you have the option to either keep it all in memory (and lose on reboot) or commit the data to disk. In my testing I only saw a ~10% performance penalty for committed data to disk (granted we have extremely fast SSDs).