Maybe I'm crazy?

[BiotechBen]

So ya know how a dram cache makes a world of difference for an SSD, would it make a significant difference for a flash drive?

And at that rate, the theoretical max data transfer speed of DDR2 exceeds the SATA III data transfer spec max speed, so if a tech recycler wanted to harvest old RAM and use it on a flash drive to sell it as Super High Speed and fully saturate the USB 5GB/s bus, could it be done?

Or is this too frankenstein-ish?

[YourRandomForumGuy]

2 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

So ya know how a dram cache makes a world of difference for an SSD, would it make a significant difference for a flash drive?

And at that rate, the theoretical max data transfer speed of DDR2 exceeds the SATA III data transfer spec max speed, so if a tech recycler wanted to harvest old RAM and use it on a flash drive to sell it as Super High Speed and fully saturate the USB 5GB/s bus, could it be done?

Or is this too frankenstein-ish?

That is definitely a possibility!

[BiotechBen]

Like, all that RAM is good for right now is collector machines and that janky thing in your parent's basement. If the general rule is 1GB DRAM per TB of storage, the 128MB chips on the RAM stick would be plenty for a high capacity flash drive. Right?

[BiotechBen]

Label it as like a "sustainability" drive. "For every flash drive we make, we are taking X amount of e-waste out of the environment"

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

It could be done. But I fear the cost to make such drive will far outweigh its worth on the market. Plus ensuring quality would be difficult considering you'll be relying on whatever bits are thrown in the bin that week.

[BiotechBen]

How much e waste do you think there is out there for RAM sticks? Like a double sided dimm would potentially make 16 drives? Like this would be something a Chinese company would do probably. Or even if you are someone like micron, using the reject chips that don't meet speed specs for the high end stuff. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

I don't see it making a big differnce adding dram to a usb drive. DRAMless ssds can already hit much higher speeds than usb, and for copying files sequentically, dramless drives will work fine.

 

45 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Label it as like a "sustainability" drive. "For every flash drive we make, we are taking X amount of e-waste out of the environment"

they already make those, they use slc cache. The flash is normally the failure point, and dram doesn't make a big difference there.

[Archer42]

Any sort of volatile cache on removable storage pretty much guarantees data loss. To avoid which the drive will then need power loss protection, which means either large array of capacitors or a battery combined with much more advanced controller than average thumb drive has. And then it stops being small and simple thumb drive...

 

Old ram is not great idea either, not because of speed, but because of power efficiency. Limits are very strict here, both in terms of available power and heat dissipation.

[BiotechBen]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/colorful-launches-thumbdrive-size-sata-iii-ssd this is the kind of crazy engineering I'm talking about. Or like an external m.2 type drive with DRAM cache using even something like DDR3 that is USB.