In article ,
wrote:
> Hi, I have question about expanding ram.
>
> Presently, I am working with some very large databases( in the 500
>gig range) and I am searching for an inexpensive way to have the
>entire databases in memory. Given that my knowledge of hardware is not
>that in depth I was wondering if someone knew the best way to expand
>memory to avoid using hardrives which are much slower than ram.
> I am considering:
> USB
> FIREWIRE
> BLUETOOTH
> and any other possibilities.
>
> Since cheap mother boards can only hold up to a few gigs unless
>you can afford a super computer, I was thinking about having my
>databases put on USB flash drives attached through a USB hub * 2
>(because must computers have 2 usb ports) adding for example 16gig usb
>drive * 2 hubs * 4 ports per hub is 128 gigs. I don't think there is
>any common mother board out there that can hold that kind of ram.
USB flashsticks are substantially slower than hard drives connected over
IDE/SATA/SCSI/etc. You'd also need a few dozen of them hanging off of one
computer to get the storage you need. For that matter, hard drives
connected over USB or FireWire are going to be slower than hard drives
connected over IDE/SATA/SCSI/etc. Bluetooth isn't even a contender, as its
top speed of about 700 kbps is a couple orders of magnitude slower.
Your only feasible option, as I see it, is to put the database on a RAID
array made with the fastest drives you can get. RAID-5 on some 15-krpm
SCSI or SAS drives would most likely be the fastest you can get with current
technology. RAID-5 on 10-krpm SCSI, SAS, or SATA drives would save some
money with (hopefully) not too big a speed hit.
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