Building a RamDisk Cad station

[JCBiggs]

I just typed a ton of stuff, but hitting the backspace button took me back a screen and deleted everything. (wtf) I am now going to bullet point everything i just typed.

 

Facts/Conclusions leading to decision to build this

• software i use is slow as turd.  i have to do something.
• in  a year, I have only use 166gb of my hybrid ssd's 500gb.
• out of the 500gb, only 453 was available to being with.  (10% loss... really?? lame)
• theoretically, 256gb of ramdisk space is plenty.   Assuming i have to do this virtually, and cant boot from ram disk (this seems to not be the case anymore)  then lets plan on 320gb of ram.
• that ram with definitely be ecc
• all mission critical data is on a server, backed up, and there is no chance i can damage anything already stored, irreparably, if the system crashes.  Worst case, i could lose something new. not a huge deal.
• I can eliminate cost of ssd's all together and get 4 fast 500gb drives in raid 10 to store the disk image relatively quickly for boot up/shut down.  
• or i can buy 1 pcie ssd and hope that writing & reading at least 166gb daily doesnt wear it out inside 2 year.  
•  of the 2 choices above, im ok with slow boots and prefer the hdd method.
• the hddssd can contain 2 images.. JUST IN CASE something happens with the everyday one. 

 

Issues, and things i hope you folks reading have insight on.

 

• is there a method to "sync" the ramdisk, instead of writing/reading the entire image throught the day?  (thinking along the lines of defrag programs the run when your idle) 
• if i can sync, there is no need to  read/write the entire 166gb image.  in which case i feel much better about using an ssd to store the image.
• The software i use, is not multithreaded (until it is) in normal usage, the slow time is the saving of the CAD data, and cruching the CAM data, as this is all single threaded, working from the HDD.    I need a processor that is as fast as possible (clock) while still having lots of threads for simulations and rendering.
• i assume the processor we come up with wil have to be a xeon, and capable of supporting such a large amount of ram, as well as having the appropriate MB.  Suggestions?
• and about booting directly from ramdisk.  I have read this is possible now. can anyone shed light on this.
• if this works (and im assuming it will) im carrying it further and building a virtual machine to host 4 ram disk based virtual workstations (since honestly, they arent all using all their horsepower at the same time anyway, why not condense the power into one unit. instead of 4 having 1.  1 can have 4, or 2 can have 2.. if you get what im saying)

 

 

 

im sure this will lead into many more questions.  But i think this is a good place to start.  Right now I am leaning towards a xeon e5 1650v3.  its a 3.5ghz (3.8 turbo)  6core(12htt) chip, and is priced right at under  600.  i think this is a good chip to start from, but I am definately open to suggestion if you guys know of a better options.   it does support 2133 ecc ddr4 (768gb worth) and at 140w tdp will give me a reason to water cool  (link to xeon is here  ... i still to this day cant tell why a e7 is "better than an e5.. are they?) 

 

so.. lets get the party started. 

[Codymm03]

Wow i wish we could see the original but this is really interesting, 

[JCBiggs]

Wow i wish we could see the original but this is really interesting, 

essentially.. the premise of the other post was that i setup a 6 gb ramdisk (i only have 8gb on my m6800)  but the results were astounding.   the saves especially were SOOOO much quicker.   We use a vault program that stores data in a safe location on  a  server, but when your working with it, it moves it to your local vault on a local drive.  when you save, it saves it back to the server vault, AFTER it saves it to the local disk vault. saving is the slow point. but is second to rebuilding, which can take 30 seconds to 10 minutes depending on the size of the model/assembly. anyways,   hence there is not a lot of need for huge storage in the machine itself.  nothing gets stored there. once a week or so i can clean up the local vault and not lose anything as its all on our servers. the machine is simply used a a giant calculator to get work done and put it where it goes.  (and send an email) 

 

one program i use in particular, must be very badly coded (draftsight by dessault)  before, if you selected all points in a drawing and tried to scale or move that drawing, you would get system not responding messages, or have to wait as the imaged jittered across the screen.  with ONLY THE DRAWING FILE saved on the ramdisk (ie not the program)  this was totally eliminated.  brief instances of lag tempted me to install the program to the ramdisk as well and all lag was totally eliminated. 

 

i can only imagine how much faster everything will be when  the os and every program are running directly from ram.  instability doesn't concern to much in this build.  Though, i would like it as stable as possible.

[JCBiggs]

FUGGIN BACKSPACE KEY DID IT AGAIN!!! UGHHHHH  is this  a setting i can change??

 

 

ok folks here is the parts list.  Im open to suggestions.  if you see two of something (like the mobo) its because im undecided, or need your input.

 

 

Parts list

• Mobo (option 1)  - asus is always option one.  but none of their board support more than 128gb of ram.... asus??? 
• mobo (option 2)  -  Supermicro X10SRA 
• Mobo (option 3) - Gigabyte  MU70-SU0
• Processor  -  Xeon 1650v3  3.5ghz 15mbchace 6 core. me like
• Ram - (ouch) most cost effective option i can find is supermicro 32gb ecc ddr 4 r dimm  $1992 for 256GB.  most doable option i can find.  dual rank as well so its fast.  

 

 

thats where im at so far.  So someone that knows more than me... when your running this much ram. does it down clock from its 2133 frequency? (gigabyte says no and im leaning to that board) trying to figure out how memory speed is affected in all this since the processor only supports a certain amount based on type.  (but it doesnt go into detail.)

[JCBiggs]

I have now narrowed the parts list down.     I am still searcing for information regarding booting into ramdisk.  does anyone know anything about this?  My next call is to gigabyte to see if they can help support it with the mobo firmware