U can get a solid state drive were you add the ram yourself. Considering the really low price of memory now you cold make a very fast small drive for a couple of hundred.

Solid state does not use normal RAM to store data, since when the computer gets turned off, all the data would be lost.

Maybe they have RAM as some kind of buffer/cache?

tbh, If I were spending £500 on a single drive, they better well put any needed ram in it.

Jack - never heard of this - are you sure it for a HDD and not a ReadyBoost device?

SDD is just too expensive at the moment

Confusion still reigns... 7,200 RPM disks with SATA-II connections have a transfer rate of 3Gbps whilst the Raptors are only available as SATA-I so the transfer rate is 1.5Gbps.

I know seek time on Raptors are about half that of the 7,2000 RPM disk, but it looks like the sustained rate would knock the performance of these drives. I suppose it depends how fragmented the drive is, cause it would normally need to do lots of seeks to read back a file.

Maybe SCSI and 15K disk would be an idea (and a money pit)

this does, its basically a board that has slots for ram, about 20 ish on the one I saw. and yes it would wipe when turned off, but I would assume it has a battery in it. I will look for a link.

Link for the nubs

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/05/hyperos_dram_hard_drive_on_the_block/

They dont come with the ram, u buy that and add it, but at £25 for 2 Gig now it a viable option if you really do want a fast drive. It wasnt £500, just looking around I seen em for $132.

This one is news to me..... but MY GOD.....

running it from a bat is complete madness (wonder how long it lasts?) but the speed boost you would get is crazy.....

Im tempted to research and order one to run CS from...

I certainly wouldnt put anything I couldnt lose on there. I would hope the battery recharged when the machine is running, but i aint read enough about them to say either way.

Gigabyte Ram Disks

Looks like a pretty old product - 4Gb DDR maxiumum - no mention of DDR2/DDR3. Good idea, but looks like they've not updated it or 3 years or so.

no there are new ones, not sure on prices tho

I could find "flash" drives with IDE interfaces - but these are no where near as fast as DDR.

I found a "Hyperdrive" - this would take 64Gb but it starts at about £1,000!

The bat only powers the ram for around 13/14 hours...

So im guessing your only safe for 12hours powered down.

Thats fine if you use your computer every day, all day and just power down to sleep ^^

Save up for solid state hard drive.