Hi, I just found this interesting product and would like any opinions on this niche product. (google: “ddramdisk”
It seems to be a modern version of Gigabyte’s i-RAM from the mid 2000s, but there are no information on the products outside of its own website or YouTube channel. I don’t need it, but it’s an interesting product that’s not available anywhere else.
This looks very interesting.
It seems ridiculously sketchy that they only accept crypto currency and won’t even place it on aliexpress or taobao… but the novelty and utility of this might outweigh the risks.
I haven’t read the entire site yet but I can’t figure out what NVME controller they are using to get a x8 PCIe link; I see a SM2264 controller mentioned on the site but that is only an PCIe4.0 x4 controller (I’m assuming that was the controller used for the earlier DDR3 based version).
In one of the comments I read that a PCIe 4.0 x16 version will be out by Christmas; and I’m 99% sure there are no x16 NVME controllers so perhaps the PCIe x8 controller is implemented completely in FPGA?
Looked it up
I swear wendell/ltt talked about this being used in the enterprise
By my guess, they’re probably using a chip that handles the PCIe lanes to 2 x4 NVMe controllers. (PLX or something similar)
I have the same concern with them only accepting cryptocurrency. If only there’s a way to get one with less risks.
First, calling a device consisting of DRAM a solid state disk is a very euphemistic term.
There is a reason why these things were never really successful.
For the price of that thing + fully kitting out all the slots, you may just buy a server board and put the memory in those slots.
With Optane and Flash endurance of 10s of PB, the gap between memory and storage became very narrow. Same with storage vs. memory bandwidth.
DDR2/3 vs HDDs had lightyears between them. DDR4 and modern NAND Flash? Not so much.
If I want a RAMDisk, I buy more RAM and do some scripts to replicate it to disk frequently. But most of my stuff is already cached in RAM unlike 1-2 decades ago.
I certainly don’t want to use some makeshift battery-backup device in 2023 that may or may not wipe my data. That’s buying the same expensive memory for a much narrower use case.
edit: The only thing DRAM is really good at is latency. But you don’t get that when using PCIe. CXL will change that, but you’ll only get this on server boards which offer TBs of memory capacity out of the box.
on consumer platform you will be bus limited even with NAND. no point using this.
If I remember correctly, the one mentioned was an add-on card for Intel PMem with Intel FPGA. (google: SMART Modular Kestral)
Usually such a hidden sale may indicate that some batch of larger oem simply goes under the table or is overproduced after hours and oem is not aware of it and bears the costs anyway…
If someone takes the time to create a product, they usually have a purpose for it.
It doesn’t look like an official product, nor does it look like a startup,
According to the info, the cards are sent straight from the “factory” … if this is really the case, it may be a desire not to show your location.
It is similar with payments, which in the case of crypto would also suggest that someone does not want to expose themselves to the light of day.
Where is it made… Only thing they mention is that they don’t ship to “Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Belarus, Iran, Syria, Yemen”.
I think these are meant to be used on desktop/gaming systems for niche use cases, like a scratch drive, instead of a server. I do agree that an enterprise grade SSD might have enough endurance for that use case.
It’s not going to beat most SSDs in sequential speeds but I’m pretty sure it’s miles ahead on the random read and write against most SSDs out there? (advertised 2GB/s vs <300MB/s on SSDs)
As for the price, I think these have high profit margins vs the material cost to take into consideration the work they would have done for the FPGAs and other stuff.
Well you can just use your existing RAM to do just that. Any OS can do this. And it’s even faster than some PCIe card. If the problem is too little RAM, just buy more. With the card, you have to buy the same DRAM too.
You’re right, but I see a gap… there are large companies that often have a lot of excess ram modules, especially when there was a generational change from ddr3 to ddr4, and it will be the same with ddr5. Many entities will suddenly start operating a large amount of ddr memory in their recycling resources, which theoretically can give free/cheap RAM to the population of such a card.
But in general it obviously makes little sense to buy 2TB for 2k based on ddr3. This is a niche market, but buy a card at a price of up to $251 each and fill it with your own ddr4 ram modules that lie unused and the company has already paid for them. In other words, the second life for the modules, the only question is whether it makes sense, taking into account all the parameters.
A new server with 1-2TB RAM will not be cheap. 
Apparently, they may / will have versions with soldered ddr4, only for now they have hidden the possibility of purchase, but the price will also probably be considerable.
I found one comment…
According to a statement regarding this issue made in the Blog comments the company is located in China and the reason they don’t accept traditional payment method is because it’s very difficult to do so in China.
Which is nonsense, I’ve done business with Chinese companies through paypal with no problem.
Pretty much what I expected from DRAM being bottlenecked by PCIe.
Good job not messing things up somewhere. I’d be interested in how it handles with all slots populated. With only PCIe x8, there is no need to maintain even JEDEC specs and underclock the hell out of the modules.
Some companies always have problems with traditional payments, not just in China
With all the Icydock and M.2 to U.2 and M.2 to NIC adapter “hacks”, this thing wouldn’t even be a stretch in the portfolio. I mean the Random I/O on a PCIe card is impressive, there is no reason to deny it. I still think this is a solution for a problem that can be better solved by other means. Unless you get the modules for free and somehow get a deal with the shady chinese manufacturer.
Another use for this would be, if it was not obscenely expensive, used in reusing lower density sticks. (For people who have sticks lying around)
I find the concept a bit strange as well. It’d be something else entirely if it was battery backed and could dump everything to flash on the event of system failure, like the RMS-200 (only 8GB, takes up x4 PCIE 3.0 lanes, can find very used units for sale floating around), and the newer and cooler RMS-375 (Radian Memory Systems has zero interest selling these to filthy peasants, you’ll never find one. Also still only 8-16GB).
A 15mm U.2 unit that you could stick a 64GB ecc sodimm stick and an equally sized 2230 M.2 drive in, and the ability to present itself as multiple namespaces would be amazing for slogs. Of course that doesn’t exist because that’s niche as fuck.
These cards have a place for batteries, whether it is sold together with the card I do not know. The ddr4 and ddr3 version with slots have a slot on the pcb, the ddr3 version with soldered ram has pins for connecting the battery.
But it doesn’t change the fact that it won’t dump itself.
In probably 2014… such a similar card was presented, battery, 4 sodimm slots, six sd cards just for the purpose of dump.
Update: All the videos have been deleted, the website is also gone.
The crypto only payment was indeed the red flag it appeared to be.
