Idea - what does everyone think?

The_Duke

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Jan 12, 2002
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I have an idea that I would like to kick around. I'm not a developer, so this may never become real, but I enjoy to try and come up with new ideas to make computers better.
Could a motherboard manufacturer add another RAM/HDD layer to increase speed? I understand that having a dedicated HDD for the OS and Swap File can increase speed. I see these 1GB USB 'jump drives' all the time. Could similar technology be used internally to achieve faster speed? Could a Motherboard add a layer of Memory that would be faster than a HDD, but not so fast as RAM?
I know that RAM drives are nothing new, but a RAM drive is volatile (it erases when you shut down). Like your jump drive, this would not erase. We'll call it a 'memory drive'. It would hold your OS in it. The size would have to be at least 2.5-4 GB, but it would not have to be as fast as RAM, since it would be accessed more like a HDD and would not be running at the speed or multiplier of the FSB. Without any need to worry about RPM speed or other mechanical limitations, couldn't an essentially faster loading and operating OS be obtained? Plus, if the swap file was loaded onto this 'memory drive', the benefits would be seen in many applications.
I am no electrical engineer, so I do not know if this would be possible. I do not know where it would connect. Would the PCI bus be too limiting?
Nor am I a software programmer. Would Windows even care if it was the 'C' drive?
Would it be cost effective?
Please let me know what you think.

The Duke
 
Humm..

1. Actually this would only speed OS load time and much everything else would not get a boost.
2. Every PC would cost more.
3. Get 1Gig of RAM instead of 256 or 512 and you will get about the same effect.

By the way, the sytem you describe already exist. There is some utility that use part of the main memory to "buffer" HDD activity. I think Intel made a software like that.

I don't think the increased cost of these kind of drive would actually be worth the performance gain.

there is actually enough memory and cache in a PC :
CPU Cache Level 1
CPU Cache Level 2
(CPU Cache Level 3)
Main Memory
HDD Cache
Swap File
fileSystem (HDD)
VideoRAM

--
What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
 
I know the various levels of RAM. The goal would to increase the speed of the Swap File. What is a good HDD transfer rate? 150MBps? The RAMbus I'm using is 1.6GBps, I think. That means when I use my swap file, I drop in speed by a factor of 10. The idea I had was to create another memory layer. It would be between the HDD and the RAM. Would this not help every program that you use that cannot be loaded entirely into RAM? What about video/sound editors who need lots of RAM? Doesn't Windows XP pro have a RAM limit of 4GB? Of course, Athlon64 has solved that problem...
As you pointed out, the processor and RAM have 3 Caches between them, why not one between the HDD and the RAM? Plus, if done, I would think the cost would be much cheaper than everyone buying 3 GB of RAM. The speed of this Cache could be half the speed of RAM.
However, I see that it adds a layer of complexity that may be unnecessary (on a hardware side).
Do you still think it wouldn't help more than just the OS load time?


The Duke
 
Would this not help every program that you use that cannot be loaded entirely into RAM? What about video/sound editors who need lots of RAM?
Basically if a program can't fit into the RAM it will not load at all. Swaping is a technology that helps extends the RAM space by moving unused RAM space to the HDD to free RAM for apps/tasks that are active or need it.

Since I have 512Megs of RAM in my PC running WinXP, the SWAP file is not use often or to much extent. I mostly never "wait" for it. And the application load time is dicted by HDD space, if you add a buffer between RAM and HDD you will add latency, so the APPS will be slower to load, the data would have to move frem HDD, to the "new buffer" than to the main memory. After the apps. are loaded into the RAM, there is no reason to read on the HDD (except if the apps. needs data that is in a file).

Audio/Video/Image editing software need more RAM, not faster HDD. Example : a HI-RES photo may need more than 50 Megs of ram when it's open, then you apply filters/color correction/etc... to that image. The apps needs RAM to calculate the new colors. No HDD needed, the HDD is only needed to read/write files and to buffer (steb back in the effect processing - see Photoshop).

For the Audio processing, it's the same thing. You open the file once and all work is done in RAM. Of course if you open a 500Megs audio file and you only have 512Megs of RAM you will hear your HDD scratching most of the time. But, this only happen rarely, because most aduio files lenght are less than 10 minutes (average). No HDD neede here too.

The Video Editing case is a bit different, but evne with the HUGE file size. Today's apps. are coded in a way that the Video is processed in efficient way. I actually have a mini-DV camera and I do editing with Vegas 4.0. I only notice HDD lag when I open a file, then the application control file access efficiently and I don't notice much "swapping".

And when you write a video file, your HDD is often waiting for the apps. to convert mini-DV format to MPEG2 format which is a much slower process than HDD access/write.

Here is the reason why I see no mush use for your "HDD buffer". It's a great idea, but increasing RAM is a much better thing to do. If HDD buffer would be that effective we would actually all have this feature in today's PC.

My last point is look at HIGH-END servers, they mostly run with SCSI-RAID controller and have much RAM. Of course the SCSI controller act like a semi HDD buffer. But these servers access databases/files at high speed. They don't need the kind of buffer you are talking about.

Do you still think it wouldn't help more than just the OS load time?
Yes. What takes CPU time is not accessing files, it's processing DATA in CACHE/RAM.

--
What's the <b><font color=green>AMD Mobile Athlon 64</font color=green></b> overclocking potential? <b>It's huge!</b> Humm... Maybe not that huge...
 
The type of thing I think you're looking at would be a flash ROM drive, using EEPROM's, which write much slower than hard drives but read quickly. It would also be quiet expensive.

Of course you could have a RAM drive using a rechargable battery so you don't loose stuff when you power down.

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