PCI-Express x1?

[joxley1990]

How can RAM work as hard drives?

We've got a couple of computers as school with them - the "graphic" computers they're called - for video editing. The specs are crazy for a school..

 

[lhuser]

Gigabyte IRAM. Google for more info.

 

[alvino]

Gigabyte I-RAM. Solid state storage is a old concept, but unpractical due to it's high price. What it does is use normal sticks of DDR RAM as storage like normal hard drives. Except, it's faster and runs cooler due to no moving parts. However, there is one catch. Since RAM is volatile, meaning if no energy is running at all times, it loses it's data. So what Gigabyte did is have a small battery power the RAM when the computer is off. When your computer is on, it recharges the battery. Some use external power sources and some don't. Depends on manufacturer.

 

[Jamxx]

And all of those PCI/PCI Express x 1 RAM cards work in that way... None of them can add to your system memory? Seems like they would figure out a way in which to get that to work... that seems much more logical than just extra hard disk space. At least, it does for today's uses.

 

[alvino]

Nope. It's used as storage like hard drives. Becides, if they used it as system memory, the latency would be insane.

 

[Jamxx]

That's what I was wondering about, whether the PCI-Express buses could have communicated fast enough with the system to compare to any kind of memory. Duh, I should've known better... hehe. What's the speed of the PCI-Express x 1 bus anyway?

 

[alvino]

Bandwidth isn't as high as normal PCI-E x16, but it's higher than the normal PCI bus.