Gigabyte Ramdisk

**Scouse Monkey** · 05-31-2005, 05:01 AM

I can't take credit for finding this as it was a link from rushnrockt's post about a mobo artcile.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2431&p=5

But is is a PCI based ramdisk that you populate with normal ram which means you could get rapid access times. It is volatile and has a 16hr battery backup but i that was increased to a decent size battery then it would be perfect for a use an OS hibernation/standby drive. At the end of the day if it loses power your Pc will just boot from the HDD.

Ram is pretty cheap these days and it would a be use for old ram that has been upgraded.

(i have to laugh at me saying that as I am still using PC133)

**rushnrockt** · 05-31-2005, 05:13 AM

Originally Posted by Scouse Monkey

I can't take credit for finding this as it was a link from rushnrockt's post about a mobo artcile.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2431&p=5

But is is a PCI based ramdisk that you populate with normal ram which means you could get rapid access times. It is volatile and has a 16hr battery backup but i that was increased to a decent size battery then it would be perfect for a use an OS hibernation/standby drive. At the end of the day if it loses power your Pc will just boot from the HDD.

Ram is pretty cheap these days and it would a be use for old ram that has been upgraded.

(i have to laugh at me saying that as I am still using PC133)

Yeah, when I first read it, I thought that the battery life kinda makes it suck, but after looking at the picture closer, it should not be so hard to put a larger battery in or have a little circuitry to lower and regulate the voltage from the car battery. And that sure will be just about instantaneous load times.

**dan__wright** · 05-31-2005, 06:28 AM

you may be able to run it from the WOL connector, or the conactant power on the atx connector.

**Scouse Monkey** · 05-31-2005, 06:42 AM

yeah there is always 5vsb but that is how your system keeps the ram power active in standby mode. The problem is that PSUs designed for powering the Pc when running are not to effieicent when just running the 5vsb and the mobo will be wasting power too. Having a nice simple, low power supply to the RAM would be perfect. You could heven have it that it only charges the RAM batteries when they get below a threashold - say 40%. The the device connects itself back up to the car power and charges. Thatw ay your car battery is not subjected to a constant low power drain which they don't like. And the odds are that you are going to be driving your car again before the 16hrs is up (which can be stretched using a bigger battery or two of those).

I am resisting the urge to start another project!

**contri** · 05-31-2005, 07:32 AM

Gigabyte's idea is great, but I'd like to see further improvements to decrease size and other connection type: why not connect it directly to SATA or IDE?. I am thinking of costum developments where size is a concern, maybe also a SODIMM board, it's a bit expensive memory but I believe some people would use it instead of a CF Card. And also, following with the CF topic: what about a board like this but with CF sockets, where you can put those old CF cards you have lying around, the ones that came with your digital camera and you think are way too small for anything useful? This way, you could have a 256 + 32 + 16 CF card Hard disk. Ok, it's not a *very* big improvement, but people embedding Windows XP in a CF knows that any Mb counts...

Just some ideas

Contri

**Scouse Monkey** · 05-31-2005, 07:43 AM

yeah i am sure we will see standalone ones to hook up to SATA soon. SODIMM would probably need less power but it is so damn expensive.

**jcdillin** · 05-31-2005, 01:13 PM

wow, thats pretty funny, I used to have a card like that but it was ISA and only took 30pin simms

and it didnt have battery backup, would only let you store data temporary

**Motoko** · 05-31-2005, 06:56 PM

wouldnt the battery get charged everytime the car is on, so when you turn the car off u got 16 hours till it goes. maybe the battery could be changed?

**0l33l** · 05-31-2005, 07:19 PM

**Scouse Monkey** · 05-31-2005, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Motoko

wouldnt the battery get charged everytime the car is on, so when you turn the car off u got 16 hours till it goes. maybe the battery could be changed?

yeah but sometimes 16hrs is not enough so either have a bigger one or a circuit to charge the battery when it gets below a certain limit.