The i-RAM was a PCI card-mounted, battery-backed

RAM disk A RAM drive (also called a RAM disk) is a block of random-access memory ( primary storage or volatile memory) that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive (secondary storage). RAM drives provide high-performance te ...

that behaved and was marketed as a

solid-state storage Solid-state storage (SSS) is non-volatile computer storage that has no moving parts; it uses only electronic circuits. This solid-state design dramatically differs from the commonly-used competing technology of electromechanical magnetic storage ...

device. It was produced by

Gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The SI prefix, prefix ''giga-, giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte i ...

and released in June 2005, at a time when genuine solid-state storage solutions were generally still less affordable than an i-RAM product with superficially similar capabilities. The i-RAM utilised

DRAM Dram, DRAM, or drams may refer to: Technology and engineering * Dram (unit), a unit of mass and volume, and an informal name for a small amount of liquor, especially whisky or whiskey * Dynamic random-access memory, a type of electronic semicondu ...

, a type of volatile memory, and was equipped with a

lithium-ion battery A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energ ...

to provide backup power. This backup power was necessary only when the host computer was either unplugged or completely powered down. Under normal conditions, the i-RAM could draw sufficient power from the

PCI bus PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Pro ...

for RAM refresh, as the PCI bus maintains standby power even when an

ATX ATX (Advanced Technology Extended) is a motherboard and power supply configuration specification, patented by David Dent in 1995 at Intel, to improve on previous de facto standard, ''de facto'' standards like the AT (form factor), AT design. ...

system is shut down. However, the preservation of the DRAM's contents was limited to a duration of 10 to 16 hours, depending on the configuration, after the power supply was completely interrupted.

Features

The i-RAM device had four DDR

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

DIMM A DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Module) is a popular type of memory module used in computers. It is a printed circuit board with one or both sides (front and back) holding DRAM chips and pins. The vast majority of DIMMs are manufactured in compl ...

slots, and used a

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard ...

connection, causing a computer to be able to see the i-RAM as a storage device. The

interface limited available

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

to a maximum sustained throughput of 150 MB/s, but allowed a latency of 0.1ms. The i-RAM was faster than the

Hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

s generally used at the time of its release. The i-RAM used

DDR1 Discoidin domain receptor family, member 1, also known as DDR1 or CD167a (cluster of differentiation 167a), is a human gene. Function Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) play a key role in the communication of cells with their microenvironment. ...

memory, which had the advantage of higher speed than hard drives. The i-RAM supported Unbuffered/Non-ECC DDR 200/266/333/400 MHz RAM modules of different capacities (up to 1 GiB), speeds, and brands for a maximum capacity of 4 GiB. Because of this, cost per GB was high, but the device offered a non-mechanical storage method with higher performance than a traditional

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

Second Generation i-RAM

The second-generation i-RAM, GC-RAMDISK, was on display at Computex 2006. Rather than using a PCI slot for powering the drive, Gigabyte had implemented the GC-RAMDISK as a 5.25" drive unit powered from a 4-pin Molex connector. The drive supported four DDR2 memory modules of up to 2 GiB for a total capacity of up to 8 GiB and the interface supported SATA 3.0 Gbit/s, which doubled the transfer rate compared to the earlier i-RAM. Although this version of the I-RAM was displayed at Computex Taipei 2006, during the final revision it lost DDR2 and the higher capacity support. The released GC-RAMDISK still only supported up to DDR-400 with a total storage capacity of 4 GiB.

i-RAM BOX

The i-RAM BOX became available in August 2007. It was essentially a full-width, half-height drive bay implementation of the PCI revision 1.3 product. i-RAM Box's main difference laid in its half-height 5.25" drive bay format that connected to a SATA port instead of the PCI bus. It used a standard 24-pin

(motherboard) power cable for standby current (Y cable supplied) and a standard 4-pin Molex power connector. It had a fan header on the PCB and a slightly more spacious PCB layout.Marco Chiappetta. "Gigabyte I-RAM Storage Device". HotHardware. March 2006

/ref> Otherwise, it appeared to be identical to the PCI version. It is unknown why this version based on the old PCI design was released rather than the second-generation model shown in 2006. Design changes would have been minimal due to the programmable Xilinx, Xilinx Spartan

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...

. Most pundits had expected changes to support 2 GiB RAM modules (possibly DDR2) and most importantly SATA 3 Gbit/s.Darksaber. "Gigabyte shows off i-RAM successor". TechPowerUp. May 2006

/ref>

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Tech report review
Solid-state computer storage media

Features

Second Generation i-RAM

i-RAM BOX

See also

References

External links