A comment here reminded me of jumbomem https://ccsweb.lanl.gov/~pakin/software/jumbomem/
DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
31–40 of 128 posts
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
SSDs currently peak somewhere around 7GB/s transfer speeds, while RAM can easily knock out well over 20GB/s (and that's a low estimate). So anything that benefits from fast transfer speeds and/or low latency will appreciate a RAM disk. SSDs are also consumable, as mentioned in other comments, so RAM disks are perfect for a scratch disk. HDDs can also serve as a scratch disk, but some tasks also appreciate the aforeme…
> So anything that benefits from fast transfer speeds and/or low latency will appreciate a RAM disk Well, anything that doesn't require persistence!
Define persistency.
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#33[deleted]
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#34I don't have a use for this, but I enjoyed the detailed write-up! In these days of fast SSDs, are there still uses for a RAM disk, beyond extreme niches?
I use one for building C++. Granted that's a bit niche, but a tmpfs filesystem over the build directory keeps the load off the SSD. Haven't actually checked it's still faster for a while but it certainly used to be. Have been doing that for five years or so.
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#35I don't have a use for this, but I enjoyed the detailed write-up! In these days of fast SSDs, are there still uses for a RAM disk, beyond extreme niches?
For anything that requires temporary but really fast storage, RAM disks is still a thing. The number of valid use cases have gone down since SSD's became the norm, but there's still situations where disk i/o or the fear of wearing out an SSD are valid concerns.
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
SSDs have wear which will lead them to eventual failure. Wear land nearly as bad as a few years back, but you can still only write to a cell for only a limited amount of times. If you're constantly writing data to your disks, you may need something that doesn't die. I would personally go with a "normal" RAM disk in this case, but CPUs only have a limited amount of RAM and memory channels available. Complex operations…
ECC is supported, see the following comment: https://ddramdisk.store/2023/01/19/the-ddr4-pcie-x8-lady-has...
That's very good. I'm not sure how the drive would signal bitflips that can't be corrected (and what the operating system will do when it happens), but at least the support is there!
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#37I wonder why this is not a commonly available and used thing.
I have always wanted to use more RAM chips than my CPUs/motherboards would support, put all the swap on RAM chips, probably also load the whole OS&apps system drive into RAM this way (hint for your board: add an SSD it would load from, single-time on turn-on) and only use a persistent storage drive for my actual data files.
Using more RAM instead of HDD/SSD always felt like a thing producing really great return in performance on investment in money as RAM is relatively cheap and really fast. The amount of RAM you were allowed to plug into a PC motherboard always felt like the most annoying limitation.
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#38Didn’t UUnet do something like this 25-30 years ago for Usenet indices, or something like that?
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
SSDs have wear which will lead them to eventual failure. Wear land nearly as bad as a few years back, but you can still only write to a cell for only a limited amount of times. If you're constantly writing data to your disks, you may need something that doesn't die. I would personally go with a "normal" RAM disk in this case, but CPUs only have a limited amount of RAM and memory channels available. Complex operations…
ECC is supported, see the following comment: https://ddramdisk.store/2023/01/19/the-ddr4-pcie-x8-lady-has...
exactly what I was wondering, thanks!
Re: DDRamDisk: RAM disk, a disk based on RAM memory chips
#40A bit off-topic:
What they are doing may be very cool, but the language on the page does not inspire as much confidence and a sense of professionalism as it should.
I assume English is not their first language, so it would be good for them to get a good copy editor to fix the weird expressions and grammar errors in the article.
This is in the spirit of constructive criticism, and it matters, because I had a harder time parsing some of their explanation as a result of the language use.
Edit: Explanation of rationale of this comment; Removal of a personal experience