The future with DDR4, RAM Disk?

[GlassBomb]

As everyone may, or may not know. DDR4 is slated to be released (no motherboards or anything yet, though) now late in 2013. And with that comes the normal higher density, Mhz and lower voltage. All good stuff.

 

But what I was pondering about was; What might this bring to us in the up-coming future? Will RAM Disks become something actually viable once the prices goes down (or not, if you're a high-end user)?

 

I imagine our RAM being more integrated into storage systems more than even once DDR4 replaces DDR3, not only speeding up applications with their higher speeds, but also working together with storage solutions to act like Seagate's SSHD's.

 

So what do you guys think? Will SSHD-like/RAM Disk become the norm in terms of storage solutions. Or do you think that storing anything at all within the RAM is a no-go.

Let me hear your thoughts.

 

//GlassBomb

[Joshyy]

RAM is already playing a fairly large part in SSDs (My SSD has 1GB of DDR3-800 cache) so I guess you can say it's already here. 

[VoidHopper]

I personally wish DDR4 RAM just wasn't MADE. I don't want to have to buy a new motherboard and WHICKED expensive ram, I'm fine with ddr3, so far I think ddr4 ram is just over kill at least for gaming anyway. Just my two cents.

[Glenwing]

The fact that DRAM doesn't store data without power means it can never be used as a normal storage system, since it will have to have a regular SSD or mechanical drive supporting it.  Which is pretty much the setup we have now, since SSDs have DRAM in them used as cache for the flash chips.  DRAM is very low density in comparison (standard SSDs use 64GB/512Gb flash chips and standard memory modules use 0.5GB/4Gb DRAM chips) and therefore very costly per gigabyte.

 

RAMdisks are a science project, not a storage solution.

[cjeffcoatjr]

The ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition already has a RAM Disk option. 

[GlassBomb]

Well, I'm not really speaking in terms of today's tech. But more in lines of maybe 5+ years. That you can cache large amount of information so that work can be done much more efficiently.

But I keep coming back to the fact that power outages, or even random crashes becomes a massive problem for anything that gets stored within RAM.

 

I want to say that when machines have 128, or maybe even 256 GB's of RAM. That it ought to be utilized more than it is today. I guess it's will be used more to speed up servers and alike more than anything.

[Hans Christian | Teri]

I personally wish DDR4 RAM just wasn't MADE. I don't want to have to buy a new motherboard and WHICKED expensive ram, I'm fine with ddr3, so far I think ddr4 ram is just over kill at least for gaming anyway. Just my two cents.

 

So what, you want to stop technological advancement because you don't feel like upgrading? You don't HAVE to upgrade you know. The rest of us are plenty excited about new tech. RAM disks are not the future though, maybe for a cache but even that is problematic during unexpected loss of power.

[GoodBytes]

The only big advantage of DDR4, beside more capacity for cheaper price, eventually (of course expect manufactures to kinda profit from them at first before dropping the price), is really reduce power usage. LPDDR3 (Low Powered DDR3) is a great, but the lower powered RAM offered by DDR4 is better. It will be nicely beneficial for tablets and laptops, and convertible devices. Oh and mobile devices (smart phones, etc.), of course.

[Fetzie]

The fact that DRAM doesn't store data without power means it can never be used as a normal storage system, since it will have to have a regular SSD or mechanical drive supporting it.  Which is pretty much the setup we have now, since SSDs have DRAM in them used as cache for the flash chips.  DRAM is very low density in comparison (standard SSDs use 64GB/512Gb flash chips and standard memory modules use 0.5GB/4Gb DRAM chips) and therefore very costly per gigabyte.

 

RAMdisks are a science project, not a storage solution.

 

What if you had a set of RAM slots that were connected to the PSU via a SATA power cable, with a rechargeable battery wired into the circuit for when the computer is shut down?

[Emkryan]

What if you had a set of RAM slots that were connected to the PSU via a SATA power cable, with a rechargeable battery wired into the circuit for when the computer is shut down?

Then SSD's would be closer to being obsolete VERY fast

[Glenwing]

What if you had a set of RAM slots that were connected to the PSU via a SATA power cable, with a rechargeable battery wired into the circuit for when the computer is shut down?

 

That's a complex setup that introduces more points of failure.  If the RAM loses power at any point for a fraction of a second, you lose every piece of data on the RAM and have to start from scratch if you don't have a backup on an SSD or HDD, I'm not sure if you are really thinking about how risky and impractical that would be.  You cannot do a motherboard swap or add or remove RAM without doing a full system backup.  You would not be able to do much of anything without a full system backup because you do not want to be working with internals on a live powered motherboard.  There are reliability issues with that because honestly our battery technology is not very good.  Think about it as if laptops only had sleep mode, or else they lose all their data.  It would not be very convenient.  Laptops would lose all their pre-installed software if they sit on a retail shelf for too long.

[Lil Chillbil]

I was running a ram disk once, then I took a bluescreen to the knee 

[GeTecknics]

I personally wish DDR4 RAM just wasn't MADE. I don't want to have to buy a new motherboard and WHICKED expensive ram, I'm fine with ddr3, so far I think ddr4 ram is just over kill at least for gaming anyway. Just my two cents.

if you are fine with ddr3 then why upgrade ddr3 will be cheaper once ddr4 comes out everyones happy 

[xox]

I don't get the point, lower latency is better for CPUs.

 

There should be seperate slots for iGPU memory.