RAMDrive for data?

[-silencer-]

With all the discussion of hard drive performance.. has anyone tried a RAM drive?
There are a variety of P45 chipset boards that support 16GB of DDR2 RAM, and OCZ has relatively inexpensive 4GB DDR2 sticks..
My WoW Data folder is almost 8GB..
So how about the performance of a quad-core box with an 8-9GB RAM Drive storing just the data folder, linked from the rest of the wow folder on the hard drive? That'll leave 7-8GB RAM free for 5 WoW instances.. with better access and read performance than 15k rpm SCSI or SSD drives.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I can tell you that sticks do NOT work, they are way way slower then raptors, don't be confused with published fast access times, the horrible write times makes everything a joke. Also although the access times are faster then raptors (I have 6 raptors), its the sequential read time (after the head has landed) transfer rate that is kinda more important if you are moving larger chucks of data.

Not sure about a ram drive though. I can't think of any off the top of my head reason why it won't work assuming you can see the drive in windows. Hummm this matter needs some looking into.

Oh ok if you have 16G in your machine you should use a 64 bit operating system and you will get better effect then having a ram drive ...

The guy "starbuck" claims to be using the unseen ram in this thread (read from the last post backwards the first pages are usless):

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/7663/?o=60

[-silencer-]

I'm not talking about USB sticks.. I'm talking about creating a RAM drive partition from your DDR2 memory, and your OS "sees" this RAM drive as a physical drive like any other hard drive. Don't even try to compare performance - a RAM disk is much faster in every way than any physical disks - SCSI, SATA, SDD, in any config - RAID0, RAID1, etc.

Here's current software to create this RAM disk in Vista64:
http://www.farstone.com/software/virtual-hard-drive.htm

I did it a few years ago using RAM Drive Pro XP to load Diablo 2 data and Counterstrike maps on the drive, and the load performance was incredibly better than my RAID0 36GB Raptors at the time.

The only downside that I can see, aside from the loss in available RAM.. is you'll need to rebuild this drive every time you reboot your machine.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I thought usb sticks sry. You are correct on board volital ram is way faster then raptors.

So whats the edge of a ram drive over just letting the operating system store everything it reads from the hard drive into the ram? The first time it gets the needed game files into the ram it will stay there and be available as needed. The first read will be faster (assuming you build the drive before you log in) but subsequest reads should be the same I would think. I don't think it will overwrite the data untill the 16G is used up. So as long as there is empty space (ram) available, subsequent reads of the same information should be as fast as a ram disk.

On the other hand I can see absolutly no downside to setting up a ram disk as you have suggested (the time it takes to move 8G from disk to Ram is nothing). If you build the ram drive on start up with wow stuffs the ram won't be available to other applications, but then again what other applications are as important as wow lol ...

Well if that product can make a 8 gig ram drive with 32 bit xp or vista then bingo for that, it says it can then thats a great idea if for some reason you have a 16g motherboard and dont want to use a 64 bit operating system.

[-silencer-]

The other option would be to get a few of the Gigabyte i-RAM boxes and RAID0 them. They're basically a hardware solution to a RAM drive - a 5.25" drive bay box that stores up to 4x DDR 1GB sticks. There are a few youtube videos of people loading Windows or games on a 4x i-RAM box RAID0 array for a 16GB disk that is blazing fast..
The downside though.. for some reason, Gigabyte decided to use SATA 1.5Gb/s instead of SATA 3.0Gb/s and DDR instead of DDR2 modules, and DDR2 are a bit less expensive. Also, only 4GB per box? Ouch.
Considering each box is around $125, and 4x 1GB DDR sticks is around $110 (instead of $75 for DDR2).. that's close to $1k for a 16GB RAID0 array. Plus, you're probably going to want an external raid controller for either this or your main hard drives.. so add more to the cost.

Gigabyte in 2006 showed off a DDR2 8GB SATA 3Gb/s model.. but it was never released. I'm still waiting for it.

[Stealthy]

The only downside that I can see, aside from the loss in available RAM.. is you'll need to rebuild this drive every time you reboot your machine.
Vista seems to update and require a reboot a lot these days - rebuilding the drive each time could get kinda tedious.

For me the main criteria would be - how much time would I save by doing this? The only visible speed gains I can see here would be from initial startup & character loading, and zoning...which to be honest don't eat up that much time anyway - WoW already does a pretty good job of reading/writing in the background. If I had heaps of memory to spare, maybe...

Cheers,
S.

[Anahka]

Loading and zoning (same thing really) will be lightning fast. Other then that; during normal gameplay/dungeons/raids/pvp I doubt you'd notice a huge difference. You'll still have to wait for the rest to load in :)

Fun, if somewhat expensive experiment, but I don't think it's worth the hassle. You'd have to copy over the WoW folder after every reboot. And let's face it, it's still Windows so it needs rebooting.

[Sarduci]

The last time I looked the only controller worth its cost was maxed out at 4GB which was the Gigabyte controller.

The "reload" comment is incorrect though. It's not like a Windows RAM drive. It retains all information as long as you do not remove power from it completely. From memory I do believe that it has a capacitor built in to hold its memory for up to 2 hours when removed from the system. It may be longer, but I'm not sure.

[Naylix]

I cant remember which, but I was looking into this about 1 year ago, and I found a product which was also limited to 4* 1gb ramsticks.

However, the drivebay was equipped with a battery unit, that could keep the data in the ram for up to 8 hours. Also, it has a small dummy pci-adapter, that draws power from your pci slot when the computer is just turned off, but still has a powercord from the wallsocket. (as pr pci standard 2.x, your pcislot can draw current to keep Wake-On-Lan or other similar things powered)

This means, that only if you have to move your pc to a new location and it takes greater time than 8 hours, will you have to reload the contents of the drive.

Ofc, having 2 of these, provided a newer model can take 4 * 4gb sticks or 8 * 2gb sticks, would be one FAST windows boot, and one equally FAST wow experience. Add some backupsoftware, and a normal platterbased harddrive, and do a frequent backup of those contents (Symantec Ghost springs to mind here) ..

That would be made of pure win.



Ofc, considering the speed of the Sata bus, and the relative cost of this setup, you might be better off just investing in an extra sata drive or more, and striping them. Searchtime is not nearly anywhere the same, but your data throughput is not far off.

[Naylix]

Ok - so google is my friend:

http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/07042003/index.htm

Hyperdrive4 - takes 8 ramsticks, ddr, up to 2gb each.

There you go.

[Sam DeathWalker]

LoL

https://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/07042003/purchase.htm

HyperDrive4 16GB max £1395.00 ($2,712) ...

[Sarduci]

Fast, cheap, or reliable - pick 2.

[Wilbur]

Well
Technically those drives are 1 out of 3. ;)

[Gadaí]

Or..... http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=354473

Solid State HDD - faster then Raid if the press is to be believed.

[wowphreak]

The older Solid State HDD drives where slower the yer average hard drive while the newer ones are about twice as fast,
Memory still whole lot faster.

The hyperdrive4 thing looks cool but damm its pricey

[HPAVC]

I brought a Imation ssd drive home (pro7500) and used it for a symlink ./Wow/Data on the machine I am trying to work on consolidating 5boxing machines to. Definate speed increase loading, zoning, flying I would say. That's about it and all I would expect, this machine also has a Killer M1.

Likely overkill, but with the money people seem to dump on graphics cards not so much. I would choose the Killer first.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Thats not out of hand, $313 for 16G.

Of course these are nand flash drives I can get this for $181:

Mfr Part Number: FUM15GK18H
Capacity: 15 GB
Form Factor: 1.8 inch
Connector: Micro-SATA
NAND Flash: MLC
Performance:
Sequential Read Rate: 120 MB/s (max)
Sequential Write Rate Low Cap/High Cap: 60/80 MB/s (max)
Access Time: 0.1 ms
Shock: 1500G (operating)
Vibration: 16G (operating)
Operating temperature: Industrial: 0°C to +70°C
Reliability:
MTBF: >1,000,000 hours
Data reliability: Built-in EDC/ECC function
Patent pending Wear-leveling algorithms
Endurance:
Read: Unlimited
Write/Erase: >8.22 years @ 50GB write-erase /day
Power Supply: Vcc= 3.3V ±5%
Dimensions: 78.5 x 54 x 5 mm
Package: Complete metal housing
Warranty: 1 year

This is $292:

Mfr Part Number: FTD15GK25H
Capacity: 15 GB
Form Factor: 2.5 inch
Interface: SATA2
NAND Flash: SLC
Performance:
Sequential Read Rate: 120 MB/s (max)
Sequential Write Rate Low Cap/High Cap: 80/100 MB/s (max)
Access Time: 0.1 ms
Shock: 1500G (operating)
Vibration: 16G (operating)
Operating temperature: Industrial: 0°C to +70°C
Reliability:
MTBF: >1,000,000 hours
Data reliability: Built-in EDC/ECC function
Patent pending Wear-leveling algorithms
Endurance:
Read: Unlimited
Write/Erase: >82.19 years @ 50GB write-erase /day
Power Supply: Vcc= 5V ±5%
Dimensions: 69.85 x 100.2 x 9.50 mm
Package: Complete metal housing
3 year warranty


Here is the Raptor X for comparison:

Hard Drive
Form Factor 3.5" x 1/3H
Capacity 150 GB
Interface Type Serial ATA-150
Buffer Size 16 MB
Performance
Drive Transfer Rate 150 MBps (external) / 102 MBps (internal)
Seek Time 4.6 ms (average) / 10.2 ms (max)
Track-to-track Seek Time 0.4 ms
Average Latency 2.99 ms
Spindle Speed 10000 rpm


If your raptor is defrag and its only doing the .4ms track-track seek and not loading a ton of tiny files it would seem its 150MB sequetial read is faster then the SSD 120MB sequetial read. And the raptor write times are almost 2X as fast.