The Ultimate Storage Drive for Gamers? - Dimmdrive Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,547 words · ~7 min read
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The concept of RAM discs or RAM drives is not exactly a new one. And the idea
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behind it is pretty simple. If you have more system memory than your
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applications require, you can use software to allocate some of it to make
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a lightning fast storage device that your system sees exactly the same way it
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would any other standard hard drive or solidstate drive. Meaning you could use
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it for anything. Sounds cool, right? Well, we do lots of cool stuff on this
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channel. We've even got a Razer Siren review coming soon. So stay tuned for
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that. But for now, roll the intro, then we'll tell you more.
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Cooler Master's Case Mod World Series is your opportunity to show off your
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modding skills and win great prizes. Entries close February 7th, 2015. Click
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now to learn more. Now, the first time pretty much anyone hears about RAM
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drives, their mind starts buzzing with ideas like, "Oh, snap. I could put my
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operating system on it or like I'm gonna put all my games on it so I'll be the
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first one to the heli in Battlefield. But life is never that simple, is it?
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System memory is usually at least an order of magnitude more expensive than
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even high-end storage drives. So those multi- gig application and game installs
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get really expensive real fast. And even if you did want to buy as much RAM as
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you can fit in your motherboard, unless you're buying a server grade board, that
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won't be as much as you might hope. And
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the list of disadvantages actually keeps on trucking here. RAM is what is known
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as volatile storage, which means every
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time the system powers off, it empties.
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That means that most RAM disk utilities need to essentially recreate the drive
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when they're launched. And every time you boot, the drive needs to be refilled
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with whatever you want to store on it from a reserved spot on your system
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drive. A process that is bottlenecked by the aforementioned system drive and can
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therefore be quite slow. Then if you update anything while using the RAM
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drive, it will need to commit those changes back to your system drive when
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you shut down by dumping them from the RAM disk. And then of course if the
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system shuts down unexpectedly then you're in for a real problem because any
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changes not committed like a a save game or a file are just gone. But in spite of
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all those challenges many performance enthusiasts and gamers remain committed
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to trying to make RAM drives as practical as they can be. And one such
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enthusiast startup Tim on Twitter thinks he's finally done it at least for gamers
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with a product called Dim Drive. Now, to be clear, the underlying technology is
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exactly the same here. There's no voodoo magic, but the claims that Dim Drive
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makes about simplifying the process and optimizing the application itself for
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gamers intrigued me. So, I got on the phone with Corsair, had them send me a
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32 gig kit of their Vengeance LPX DDR4 2400 MHz RAM, which I ran in quad
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channel on an ASUS X99EWS motherboard for a basically as good as it could
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possibly get scenario for DIM drive to really prove to me if it's worth the
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money. So, first a quick tour of the product, though. On the main screen is
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an autopop populated list of the Steam games that you have installed. The star
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allows you to easily sort whichever ones you want to the top. The size shows you
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how much RAM you'll need to cache that game. The wrench to the far right lets
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you choose whether to autoload that game and whether to enable real-time file
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synchronization, which should, knock on wood, protect you from progress loss in
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an unexpected shutdown scenario and a less RAM option to show DIM drive where
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the important files are to cache for this title. So you can boost performance
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potentially without caching the entire game and therefore getting a little bit
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more mileage out of your RAM. Finally, the slider next to the wrench tells that
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game whether to cache or not. In the apps tab, you can add non- Steam games
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or any other applications you want by manually uh dragging them onto the
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window or right-clicking and clicking add. Then the settings tab lets you
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configure your drive letter, the size of your DIM drive, your startup options,
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and your color scheme. Finally, at the very top of the window is the master
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slider to turn DIM drive on and off. And I'll give this to Tim. This is a lot
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simpler to configure than RAM disk software that I've used in the past. But
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even if it works as intended, is a RAM disk really a sensible upgrade for
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gamers. Storage speed is well documented
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as having literally zero impact on your FPS. So, the thing to look at then is
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loading times. We ran four different scenarios. a one terabyte 7200 RPM WDD
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black hard drive. A one terabyte Samsung 850 Pro SSD. That same SSD with
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Samsung's rapid RAM cache enabled. We
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needed to show several results for this one, by the way, to show how it learns
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over time. And finally, DIM drive with the full game loaded into memory.
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And this conclusion probably won't surprise anyone who has fooled around
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with RAM drives before, but it was still an interesting experiment for me to run
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and make a video about since I wanted to play around with the software anyway. I
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really think that DIM drive has made enormous strides towards making RAM
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drives easier to use, but that doesn't change that the most compelling storage
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type for an enthusiast PC or gaming PC is still an SSD. It's only a few times
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more expensive than a hard drive and makes your entire system much more
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responsive, not just game or application loading times, and it costs about
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onetenth what you'd spend per gig to put your games in RAM every time you boot
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up. Now, if DIM drive was like 10 bucks
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and you're the kind of person who really only plays one or two games and enjoys
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being the, you know, the first one to the heli, like I said before, then it
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would actually get a pretty strong recommendation. At $30 though, it's a
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little too much for me to buy for personal use, though. Speaking of things
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that cost too much, razors. But fortunately, today's episode sponsor,
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some reason. I've had people tell me, "Well, Lionus, they don't keep the razors in a behind a lock and key at my
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store." Well, you know what? They do here. I actually have footage of it that
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maybe we can find or maybe we can't. But the point is, it's a pain in the butt to
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as well as their aftershave and their one wipe charlies, which actually aren't
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shaving supplies unless you were trying to clean your butthole so you could
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shave that. One wipe Charlie's are butt wipes for men, by the way, in case you
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couldn't figure that. Anyway, I don't remember where I was going with this, guys. It's dollarshaveclub.com/Linus
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to start saving time and saving money on your shaving supplies. It's good stuff.
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Check it out. It's linked in the video description. And I think we're pretty much done here. Can't believe I was
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talking about butthole shaving. I mean, what is this? What does this show come to? Anyway, guys, like this video if you
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liked it. Dislike it if you thought it sucked. Leave a comment below and let me
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know about dim drives or if your feelings are just more complicated than
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this. As always, also linked in the video description, you can support us.
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