SanDisk ULLtraDIMM DDR3 400GB SSD Enterprise Review

[PortentousLad]

I seriously don't get it. What would I ever want this for?

[darkspeedy26]

guys, this is not a "ramdisk" as you know

 

its an ssd that you connect with one of your ddr3 connectors.

[lightningterror]

Linus needs to get his hand on this and make a review along with some benchmarks for comparison.

[Slipknot2k4]

DDR3 is so outdated what about DDR4?

[chicksoup]

I assume bioses would have to be reprogrammed to get this to work and you'd need certified ram that works at the same time

[Guest xx116xx]

Actually one of the coolest things I've seen recently. I'm hoping that this will continue into something.

[Krabby127]

While doing some IT work for Sandisk over the summer I got to see some of these perform. And they are truly amazing! 

Any Ultra-DIMM at the facility was kept under lock and key and had to be opened with two separate keys in order for an engineer to check one out. It's great to see that they're getting even closer to production. 

 

The best part is that supposedly you only need a BIOS update to use the Ultra-DIMM. Otherwise, it just sticks in a DIMM slot like any other RAM. 

[Romjo]

Guys guys... this isn't the first time this has been seen. I'm glad a big provider like SanDisk finally produced it though.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/27/viking-modulars-satadimm-jacks-an-ssd-into-your-memory-slot/

 

http://storageioblog.com/nand-flash-sata-ssd-ddr3-dimm-slot/

 

I'm sure there are a few others out there.

 

Romjo

[Krabby127]

Guys guys... this isn't the first time this has been seen. I'm glad a big provider like SanDisk finally brought forward.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/27/viking-modulars-satadimm-jacks-an-ssd-into-your-memory-slot/

 

http://storageioblog.com/nand-flash-sata-ssd-ddr3-dimm-slot/

 

I'm sure there are a few others out there.

 

Romjo

Well the big difference between Sandisk's Ultra-DIMM is that it will be transmitting data over the FSB. The ones that you linked only draw power from the DIMM slots. They still require a SATA interface. 

[Umair]

My mind just went

 

[Cedimedi]

They were already announced in January 2014.. And the speed is meh

But always yay for new technology

[Romjo]

Well the big difference between Sandisk's Ultra-DIMM is that it will be transmitting data over the FSB. The ones that you linked only draw power from the DIMM slots. They still require a SATA interface. 

 

ty Krabby, i skimmed to find the article and not read it (just remembered it was mentioned). I'm glad sandisk is transmitting it over the FSB now ... consumer grade plix ?

[patrickjp93]

I don't understand why someone would want to put an SSD into the RAM slot. What else will we see?  DDR4 GPUs?

It is cool, but not something i would call innovative. 

that's been done by Imagination Technologies on DDR3.

[Azzitude]

you guys need to think outside the box for consumer use ....... X99   8 dimms DDR4 ...... Use 4 for Ram (64gb) and the other 4 in quad channel mode for 4 of these drives in Raid 0 ......hmmm   1.6TB on the ram bus at 2400, and the drive(s) performance is linear ... you do the math. if/when a ddr4 version is available that is.

 

http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/X99DELUXE/

[patrickjp93]

you guys need to think outside the box for consumer use ....... X99   8 dimms DDR4 ...... Use 4 for Ram (64gb) and the other 4 in quad channel mode for 4 of these drives in Raid 0 ......hmmm   1.6TB on the ram bus at 2400, the the drive performance is linear ... you do the math

As soon as you develop a raid controller for the RAM bus, patent it and sell it to the highest bidder, because no one has worked that out yet.

[Mr. Chairman]

So this is a lot like anal sex. It sorta operates on the same principle, but it's going somewhere else (unexpectedly) and provides different experience.

Is it better? Opinions vary among consumers. But it sure inserts itself somewhere it was never intended to be inserted...

[Guest andyysplash]

it go's into your server because it has more dim slots. your ddr3 duel channel mother board generally wont have the free slots unless you want to run single channel ewwww no don't od that

 

On AM3+ and consumer Intel you could run dual channel ram and RAID 0 ramssdthing and fill four slots that way (yay for 8GB sticks) or on enthusiast Intel (which is probably where the pricing will be aimed at) you have 8 dimm slots so why not run quad channel ram and then RAID 0 or 10 (because mirror) in the other four slots?

[patrickjp93]

On AM3+ and consumer Intel you could run dual channel ram and RAID 0 ramssdthing and fill four slots that way (yay for 8GB sticks) or on enthusiast Intel (which is probably where the pricing will be aimed at) you have 8 dimm slots so why not run quad channel ram and then RAID 0 or 10 (because mirror) in the other four slots?

As soon as someone figures out a raid controller for the RAM bus, someone will be very rich.

[Defekt1ve]

How does this work in terms of Dual-channel/Quad-channel RAM configurations on mobo's? I mean, say i have a dual-channel mobo, with 4 slots and two of them occupied by regular DDR3, then i install one of these into one of the two remaining slots. How does this RAM slot SSD work with regards to that?

[ImprovizoR]

can you boot from it?

This is a very important question. And I suspect that the answer is no. Which is why this technology isn't going to be very useful until motherboard manufacturers start making motherboards with this in mind.

[Gnator]

I am so confused and turned on right now...

[steffen_anywhere]

This particular sample isn't really that fast tho... My MacBook Pro's MPCI-E SSD can do the same in terms of sequential speeds. The latency is definitely higher tho... It is also a much larger capacity SSD so that helps as well.

 

That said, the technology is quite cool and looks much better than having SSDs connected like hard drives to me. Then again, having another RAM slot for "storage" may require you to not have as many DIMMs...

[Krabby127]

This particular sample isn't really that fast tho... My MacBook Pro's MPCI-E SSD can do the same in terms of sequential speeds. The latency is definitely higher tho... It is also a much larger capacity SSD so that helps as well.

 

That said, the technology is quite cool and looks much better than having SSDs connected like hard drives to me. Then again, having another RAM slot for "storage" may require you to not have as many DIMMs...

I know that Sandisk recently acquired a company called Fusion-IO that has specifically been working on PCI-e SSD's (mainly for enterprise use). And Sandisk is promising even faster speeds with their Ultra-DIMMs. I don't know how much of a consumer product this is going to be though. 

Personally, on my mobo, I have 2 slots occupied with RAM and another 6 open that could be filled with Ultra-DIMMs. I don't see a need to ever go up to 64 GB of RAM, so the extra slots would definitely have a home in my PC. 

[Gammett]

Chip makers would have to dedicate space for it on it the silicon, since the memory controller is on there. Or we could have a second memory controller on the mobo but it would introduce more latency.

 

(It's a guess)

if we need a new memory controller then how does this piece of magic work then I ask you

[Gammett]

How long until someone makes a waterblock for it?

I'll give them a week