Giga-byte Technology recently came out with a DRAM-based PC card that operates as a SATA hard drive. The product, iRAM, uses power from the motherboard to keep memory active when the system is shut down. During power outages, the product uses a on-board battery to retain memory for up to 90 minutes. The iRAM card is being talked about in the news (InfoWorld, itWorldCanada, engadget, PCWorld, multiplay forum) as a means of booting Windows faster. That is, you install Windows onto the iRAM drive to take advantage of the RAM's faster read-access time. Just hope that you don't lose power for more than 90 minutes.

Is boot time really that important, since many computers are on all the time? A ramdisk might have better uses, perhaps for caching frequently-accessed files such as databases and webservers. Or, if you insist on having faster bootup, instead of putting Windows on the iRAM disk, why not just store the hibernation file there?

I implemented a RAM-based database for an internet tool in 1998 to alleviate the read/write load on my local hard drive. It turned out to be a simple solution for the problem. At the time, it was just a matter of using a DOS-based ramdisk driver (ramdisk.sys). On application startup, it copied the database files to the ramdisk. During operation, everything was read/written to the ramdisk, and periodic backups were made to the physical disk. There are some inherent risks, such as loss of data during a crash since data isn't immediately written to a physical hard drive, so it may not be a great solution for a mission-critical production database. The iRAM product would make this type of database even more stable, in that the risk of loss of data is much less.

That was a while ago, so I thought I'd look into setting up a ramdisk in XP for some amusement. Follows are the results of that search. It seems that the options are relatively sparse beyond the DOS-based driver. A few freeware and commercial packages are available, though. One key factor beyond price is the size limit of ramdisk.

Microsoft's ramdisk offerings since Win2k are limited. Included with the XP OS is a ramdisk sample driver that "provides an example of a minimal driver. Neither the driver nor the sample programs are intended for use in a production environment. Rather, they are intended for educational purposes and as a skeletal version of a driver." Installation isn't simple enough for most users to benefit.

Alternatives include a shareware ramdisk, AR ramdisk (freeware, 2GB limit, discontinued, available for download here), a freeware (64MB limit) and shareware (2GB limit) version here, another shareware version, and a commercial package (4 GB limit).

Related articles and news:

• The Berkeley Intelligent RAM (IRAM) Project - "seeks to understand the entire spectrum of issues involved in designing general-purpose computer systems that integrate a processor and DRAM onto a single chip." Note that IRAM != iRAM.
• RAM-only Databases - a recent slashdot article

This article submission was rejected (12/10/04 12:54p), so I guess I'll put it here. Maybe someone will still find it interesting.

On Wednesday (12/8/04), Penn State University announced that users should switch from using Microsoft Internet Explorer to another browser. The College of Engineering recommends its faculty/staff/students switch to Firefox, with Safari as an alternative. Also mentioned are Mozilla, Netscape Communicator, and Opera.

Here's a better news article: The Chronicle of Higher Education (only available to non-subscribers for 5 days from post-date). It's also covered on ZDnet.

The notice is receiving criticism among PSU IT personnel at various levels within the university. (Listserv archive URL omitted to prevent the slashdot effect.)

1. Some wonder why they weren't given a heads-up on the recommendation to prepare for the onslaught of user calls and emails.
2. Another criticized that only IE has tools for enterprise management, making patching 500+ installations of Firefox or any other "alternative" browser impractical. In reply, someone mentioned using MSI files for installing (and updating?) Firefox, which can be forcibly pushed to domain users by Active Directory.
3. Another person wondered how many users will voluntarily change to a non-IE browser after receiving this notice (even if Firefox is pushed to all users), considering that IE must remain installed for compatibility with a few critical websites (some at PSU, some outside). This brought up the question of why any service would be developed that isn't cross-platform/browser-compatible.

Also noteworthy:
EIS webpage (updated on 12/7/04, a day before the news release (coincidence?)). Summary: Firefox is not a supported browser in EIS.