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I'm in the process of putting Proof Of Concept for one of my customers and wonder if it is possible to use SSD like OCZ Drive z (see link here as RAM with Ubuntu Server edition (64 bit)? I didn't buy that drive as of yet, but that's not an objection and would be approved by customer.

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Yes -- you could use it all as swap space. You can't use it as 'native memory' because it isnt on the memory bus, nor would the CPU be able to address it directly. Swap space is the software implementation of this -- and what you want to use.

Why bother though? Traditional memory is faster.

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  • 1TB of memory will be WAY to expensive. I like your idea to use it at swap space. I need to fetch the data from SSD to RAM to GPU's RAM and thought that it might be smarter to use PCI-X to PCI-X directly (whick looks like unavoidable).
    – Roman Kagan
    Aug 9, 2009 at 21:40
  • This sounds like a software architecture issue. Having 1TB of memory available might be overkill. Do they really need an entire 1TB block of data in memory to work with, or is it a transactional system that can work within a normal amount of ram, but would benefit from a highspeed disk system (such as the device mentioned). If it really needs 1TB of memory it wont scale very well and the issue needs to be readdressed.
    – SirStan
    Aug 14, 2009 at 15:02
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The maximum sustained throughput of 400 MB/s is way below what RAM operates at. I may be missing something, seeing as I don't use Ubuntu Server much, but how would you use this device as RAM anyway it's physical storage.

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  • Would you please educate me - what's the RAM's max speed?
    – Roman Kagan
    Aug 9, 2009 at 21:40
  • DDR3 1066MHz which is standard in most new servers has a max throughput of 8533 MB/s.
    – MDMarra
    Aug 9, 2009 at 21:50
  • That is for a single channel by the way. Most configurations are triple channel on Intel's newest platform.
    – MDMarra
    Aug 9, 2009 at 21:53
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As others have said, no, but it makes nice storage for stuff that is random rather than sequential. For 2x the money you can get similar things that are faster. Some get power from the bus, but plug into your SATA port, so no special driver, and you can boot from them. Much cheaper than the same number of seeks per second from traditional drives.

I know that 550MBPS write, 700BMPS read can be achieved, and that some time back.

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  • Would you please elaborate about your statement about "For 2x the money you can get similar things that are faster". Are there anything faster than OCZ Drive z? I'd love to find out. Greatly appreciate in advance.
    – Roman Kagan
    Aug 10, 2009 at 15:10
  • I cannot find the info on the specific card, but it was at least a few months back, it came in 80, 160, 320 GB capacity. It was some time back. Here are some interesting links I found looking for it: it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3532
    – Ronald Pottol
    Aug 12, 2009 at 22:41
  • @Ronald: If you're thinking of a PCI-e card in those capacities, it's probably the Fusion-IO drives, and they are significantly more expensive than any SSD on the market at the moment. The 80 GB drive starts at around $3000 USD.
    – Daniel Lawson
    Aug 27, 2009 at 22:34
  • @Roman: for sequential workloads, the OCZ drive is fine. For random workloads, I believe the Intel X25-e is still probably the best readily available enterprise grade SSD. The Fusion IO PCI-e cards outperform it, but are also an order of magnitude more expensive. ZeusIOPS SSDs also allegedly outperform it, but I've had no luck in getting hold of them.
    – Daniel Lawson
    Aug 27, 2009 at 22:36

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