Need a little RAM, Sam?
p2pnet.net News:- Need something a little extra in the way of RAM?
Then you’ll be interested in Texas Memory Systems’ RamSan 320, at 2.5TB, "the largest SSD installation in the world", asWoody Hutsell, executive vp for TMS told Techworld here.
Or put another way, it’s about 10,000 times the size of the RAM in your PC.
List price is $4.7million. But it was bought by the US government at a discount, says the story.
The installation site is in Washington DC and the application involves hosting metadata for large file systems, several databases including Oracle and the acceleration of other storage-based applications by holding, for example, journal files in the SSD, Techworld reports, going on:
"What that means in simple English is that the US government has just bought the world’s biggest RAM drive in order to speed up cross-checking across several vast databases. The way databases work, a query will tend to scan an entire table if it thinks that anything more than a small percentage of the table’s contents are relevant."
Who’d want it?
It would be hard to justify a $4.7 million outlay unless the work it was being used for was seen as vital, and speed was of the essence, Techworld goes on, adding:
"It is also peculiar that such a large purchase could be approved at a time of tightening belts.
"Now, we’re not saying that the Department of Homeland Security is behind the purchase. Or that it is using the technology to search the various databases of people that it, the government, the NSA and the Pentagon possess. But all of them are based in Washington DC and there are of course there are some issues about Islamic terrorists already living in the States."
Apparently, the previous record holder was under a measly 500GB.
