Sandisk/Super Micro/Diablo unveil SSD that plugs in to DDR3 DIMM slot.

[Umbongo]

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/sandisk-supermicro-storage-ssd-dimm,1-2099.html

http://www.sandisk.com/enterprise/ulltradimm-ssd/

Another thing to add some life to an older Mac Pro? Be great if those 4th DIMM slots could be used to add really fast storage. Have a feeling the pricing will be "enterprise-only" though. Thought it interesting none-the-less.

Could turn up in Mac Pros in the future of course, as an alternative to using those limited PCI-E lanes and under-utilised capabilities of the memory controller.

 

[brand]

200GB and 400GB capacities. A Google search of the part numbers didn't return anything as far as pricing goes. I am interested in this for the virtualization aspect. It would be interesting to see how these play out in the industry.

Last week we just bought 36 x 32GB 1333MHz ECC LR-DIMM for three of our VM hosts in one of the clusters. At $500 per module it adds up quick. I wonder what adding these new modules would do. Seems like it would be great for virtualized databases.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

How does this thing actually work?

On the Mac Pro, all the memory slots are hanging off the processor(s) directly. There's no PCI-e bus or anything available on those slots. AFAIK, no currently shipping CPU would support that flash disk if it were addressed as physical RAM (that is to say that the stick shows up as a slower 200GB or 400GB memory stick).

That makes me think that they're using some sort of whacky SAS-over-DDR3 protocol instead (or maybe some sort of bank switching setup triggered by software), but I can't find any details about this at all.

I think the only thing for sure is that there is no way this thing will be "plug and play". It will require some serious low level kernel cooperation to operate, and I'm guessing that will totally eliminate any Mac Pro from feasibly using it under Mac OS X (since I highly doubt Apple is interested in such upgrades).

-SC

 

[brand]

How does this thing actually work?

On the Mac Pro, all the memory slots are hanging off the processor(s) directly. There's no PCI-e bus or anything available on those slots. AFAIK, no currently shipping CPU would support that flash disk if it were addressed as physical RAM (that is to say that the stick shows up as a slower 200GB or 400GB memory stick).

That makes me think that they're using some sort of whacky SAS-over-DDR3 protocol instead (or maybe some sort of bank switching setup triggered by software), but I can't find any details about this at all.

I think the only thing for sure is that there is no way this thing will be "plug and play". It will require some serious low level kernel cooperation to operate, and I'm guessing that will totally eliminate any Mac Pro from feasibly using it under Mac OS X (since I highly doubt Apple is interested in such upgrades).

Very much agree that the Mac Pro will probably never see this.