could you hypothetically install your OS into your RAM?

[alex75871]

Yes in a virtual environment. But why?

[RobertHowie]

Soooo It is possible then?
I will actually have a look at ramdisk, seems like a good way to justify more upgrades to myself.

[leadeater]

Soooo It is possible then?

I will actually have a look at ramdisk, seems like a good way to justify more upgrades to myself.

 

You'll need a very large amount of ram. It will likely not just have to be ECC but also registered so you can go past 64GB per cpu, which also means Xeon CPU is required.

 

Can you just give me the cash so I can set it on fire?

[Pofi]

Yes. You'd have to use an OS that doesn't require a restart during install - then you're set. Otherwise might still be possible but extremely complicated. OR if you mean ANY OS and not necessarily INSTALL then you could go with something like KNOPPIX - which doesn't exactly install, but can be booted on directly to ram. That way you'd need to keep your computer on the whole time, BUT your OS would be fully inside of your RAM the entire time post boot.

[Pofi]

You'll need a very large amount of ram. It will likely not just have to be ECC but also registered so you can go past 64GB per cpu, which also means Xeon CPU is required.

 

Can you just give me the cash so I can set it on fire?

32GB is more than enough for that. Unless you're intentionally testing how much bloatware windows can set up on your computer if you don't pay attention to what you click. But that's only true for windows and only for poor usage scenario.

[Pofi]

Soooo It is possible then?

I will actually have a look at ramdisk, seems like a good way to justify more upgrades to myself.

Yes, but if you're doing this just for performance I'd recommend looking into PCIe SSDs instead. Far more reliable and not too much slower, also - much much much less trouble. I'd pick that over RAM any time.

[leadeater]

32GB is more than enough for that. Unless you're intentionally testing how much bloatware windows can set up on your computer if you don't pay attention to what you click. But that's only true for windows and only for poor usage scenario.

 

And never install any windows updates ever, which is not the best. The smallest Server 2012 R2 footprint I have running is 20GB with no GUI and basically nothing installed but ADFS. Windows 10 etc is going to be significantly larger than this if you actually want to use it, not just go hey cool I can do it then delete it.

 

If the goal is to have a super fast experience there is zero point in storing just the OS in the ram disk and not the applications too. Comes back to the "Why are you doing this question". Pretty much everyone here agrees with your sentiment, just use an SSD.

[legopc]

Nvme has no where near the bandwidth memory does.

Yes it does. NVMe is directly connected to the PCI-E bus on the cpu and there have been RAID configurations that rival memory speed wise. I could go into death on the bandwidth of pci-e lanes and how you are wrong and mis informed but its 0:47 and my neck is hurting.

 

You could kill your boot times entirely by investing in some Viking ArxCis-NV.

That device can not be booted from, you can not even access it. That device is used to prevent losing the data that is written to the memory in event of a power loss. This was developed for server applications, seeing as database server often store the database in a ramdisk it would be catastrophic if the server lost power. 

[Sam Z Man]

Yes it does. NVMe is directly connected to the PCI-E bus on the cpu and there have been RAID configurations that rival memory speed wise. I could go into death on the bandwidth of pci-e lanes and how you are wrong and mis informed but its 0:47 and my neck is hurting.

 

That device can not be booted from, you can not even access it. That device is used to prevent losing the data that is written to the memory in event of a power loss. This was developed for server applications, seeing as database server often store the database in a ramdisk it would be catastrophic if the server lost power.

It's designed to make the computer turn on and be exactly were it left off.

[Electronics Wizardy]

If have fast netorking(10gig or faster) you can use pxe boot with iscsi and boot off a iscsi ram drive.

[legopc]

If have fast netorking(10gig or faster) you can use pxe boot with iscsi and boot off a iscsi ram drive.

Shit mate, that might actually work. Though I think the bandwidth can exceed 10gig. 

[leadeater]

Shit mate, that might actually work. Though I think the bandwidth can exceed 10gig. 

 

It does, tried it myself. It's not as amazing as you might expect due to higher latency (compared to ram) and iSCSI/networking overheads etc. Still amazingly fast, in some ways faster and in others slower than 2 directly attached 840/850 Pros in raid 0. NVMe will far exceed both anyway.

 

Edit: Multipath iSCSI over 2 or more 10Gb connections would give NVMe a run for its money, wish I could try that out.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there RobertHowie,

 

Here are my two cents on the topic:

- RAM is a type of memory which cannot retain its data when it loses power meaning whenever you shut your system down it gets emptied.

- There are ways to use part of your RAM as a storage device - RAM Disk. You can put data, install programs and even put your OS on it, but with a few tweaks. What some software programs do is whenever you power down your system the specific software creates a huge image file of everything on the RAM Disk and stores it elsewhere (HDD, external drive, thumb drive, network place, etc.). Whenever you power back on your system, the software gets the image files and expands it back on the RAM Disk and then you are able to launch your OS from it. 

- This is not theory. There are people who need extremely fast storage for their jobs and not even the NVME SSDs can compare with the ~10GB/s speeds of the RAM disk, but those people also need certain amount of RAM. Every GB that goes to the RAM disk is taken from the memory of the computer so this makes it a bit unpractical. 

 

Feel free if you have other questions or need more info on this

 

Captain_WD.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Shit mate, that might actually work. Though I think the bandwidth can exceed 10gig. 

Then there is 100gig networking for you