Question Is the Gigabyte iRAM Ramdisk compatible with DDR1 server RAM?

[Genralkidd]

I recently just acquired one of those old Gigabyte PCI Ramdisks and I've seen some sources say those only support a max of 4 GB of RAM because DDR1 dimms maxed out at 1 GB. However, I just learned that there are 2 GB dimms for DDR1 but they're ECC server RAM. I couldn't find any documentation on whether the Gigabyte i-RAM supports ECC Ram or not. Does anyone happen to know if it might support it?

 

[Alabalcho]

The reviews I find are all 15+ years old, and all specs are for 4GB un-bufferred, non-ECC sticks. So, if you're willing to test with 2GB DIMMs, no one will stop you, but you risk having four sticks of RAM collecting dust.

Considering this is 4GB only, PCI board - what is the actual usage?

 

[Genralkidd]

The reviews I find are all 15+ years old, and all specs are for 4GB un-bufferred, non-ECC sticks. So, if you're willing to test with 2GB DIMMs, no one will stop you, but you risk having four sticks of RAM collecting dust.

Considering this is 4GB only, PCI board - what is the actual usage?

It'd definitely be great if there were more modern boards like this that could support large DDR4 dimms but for 4 GB (maybe 8 GB), it's more of a curiosity for me but I could possibly use it as a scratch disk for some small video editing projects. I'd try the 2 GB DIMMS but they're a bit pricey on eBay and often have a no refund policy so I'm kind of hesitant to try it out without knowing for sure if they work or not.

 

[BFG-9000]

No, the i-RAM's memory controller will not understand what to do with registered memory. However if that's unbuffered ECC memory, then it should work fine but just ignore the extra chip and still be 1GB max.

The i-RAM was famous for being able to even use semi-defective memory because it only ran the sticks at 100MHz (DDR1-200), which was more than sufficient to saturate the SATA150 interface and deliver 1/10 the latency of any SSD. But 4GB is the maximum capacity. Even the external version (the 5.25" bay i-RAM BOX) had the same limitation, and while the 2nd gen model with DDR2 and SATA300 was shown at Computex 2006, it was never released. If you want such a device I suggest the 64GB capacity Acard ANS-9010


4GB was just enough to install Win9x onto and bootup was truly an instant-on experience. I still have four i-RAMs and can tell you none of them could charge the onboard battery past 3.6v (about half charge) on 3.3v PCI--apparently 5v PCI is required to fully charge the battery. The PCI is only used to charge the battery and supply power so only two wires from it are needed.

 

[kanewolf]

It'd definitely be great if there were more modern boards like this that could support large DDR4 dimms but for 4 GB (maybe 8 GB), it's more of a curiosity for me but I could possibly use it as a scratch disk for some small video editing projects. I'd try the 2 GB DIMMS but they're a bit pricey on eBay and often have a no refund policy so I'm kind of hesitant to try it out without knowing for sure if they work or not.

System RAM is much faster, and much more available. Just use a software RAM disk that uses system memory. AMD even has one for free if you have an AMD CPU -- http://www.radeonramdisk.com/software_downloads.php

I have 32GB system RAM and run an 8GB RAMDISK ...