A little less than two months ago, Gigabyte introduced the iRAM at the Computex show in Taiwan, a product that uses DDR-I memories to create HD in a SATA configuration. In the pictures we saw at the time, the product looks like a PCI card with four slots for the memories we will need to install on the card - then the card will be connected via a simple SATA cable and will be identified as HD for everything.
The above concept is not new in the market as we have been enjoying the benefits of flash memories for several years now, these memories are also not based on moving parts (hence their overall name "Solid State"), generally faster compared to mechanical HD but their big downside Gigabyte's iRAM is supposed to solve this problem by not using FLASH memories but DDR memories that differ substantially from the FLASH memories in the structure. FLASH does not need voltage to store the information on them, DDR memories need a constant supply of power to preserve the information on them.In Gigabyte this problem was solved by placing a battery on the card that will maintain the voltage needed to store the information (hence also a built-in disadvantage Since if the battery is not replaced while the information is lost).
AnandTech took the product for first review and found the product to be so fast that it easily bypasses the fastest HD on the market today Western Digital Raptor 74GB, to be more precise in comparison between the two storage devices, the iRAM mounts on the Raptor every time, even in large increments.
The importance of the product is especially great at this time, since early next year AMD will also use DDR-II, so many users will be left with unused DDR-I memory. This product may be the most cost-effective purchase to use that extra memory.
You can also think of a new OC field that will be developed for the OC community in the world: OC to HD 🙂
