Greg Freemyer wrote:
I think we are in a semantics discussion. To me a non-volatile ramdisk is an oxymoron. I also think of a ramdisk as being bootable media.
--- Originally, (mid 50's up to about mid 70's) memory defaulted to being non-volatile (magnetic core memory). By the end of the 70's, most of that had been replaced by 'dynamic' RAM (DRAM) -- which needed constant refresh to hold its value. In other words, non-volatile RAM was the default. Random Access Memory can include volatile or non-volatile. Richard Brown wrote:
My new home system has 2TB of NVMe storage and no HDD or SSD storage each NVMe is benchmarking at speeds of 3100GB/sec (read) and 2300GB/sec (write)
No question that NVMe devices, being directly attached to the MB, are fast. I compared their transfer rates to the cpu-to-cpu memory transfer rates (meaning from 1 cpu socket to another).
I could set them up as a RAID if I wished (AMD Bios' support it at least)
So I don't think it's fair to categorise things the way you have.
I don't see them as being as portable as SAS or SATA drives which have an established, *architecture-independent* specification. The PCIe drives are limited by slots on the motherboard -- and I having to open up a workstation to unplug a disk and use it elsewhere is hardly convenient. As for a RAID, I'm not thinking a few disks, but allowing for a batch of 24 in a 12x2 RAID0-Mirror (aka RAID10). No way Greg's gonna see slots on an X99 board for 24 of those -- even 4T each would be insanely expensive, let alone a compliment of 10TB drives out of SSD (even if they were available).... PCIe drives really don't fall into the category of "peripherals" like most drives do -- they aren't portable between architectures like SCSI or SAS drives can be. How does 'fair' enter in to disk categorizing? I thought it was more about 'utility'. If the PCIe drives can sit in unpluggable containers outside the computer, then I might not think they are in a separate category, but as long as they have to be attached to the MB, I have a hard time seeing them as other than a type of ramdisk that can be addressed like a disk, but is still RAM (of a sort) sitting on the motherboard like main memory. Main memory for other cpu-chips on the MB are only addressable through the their local CPU and have their speeds measured in the Gt/s (Giga-transfers/second) in the same range as the PCIe 'disks'. They likely have their own controller (another cpu) to talk through and handle emulation. In that regard they share more with NUMA than either peripheral HD's OR on-board, local memory. I would also agree w/Greg, that whatever one wants to call them, its mostly a matter of semantics/definitions.... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org