On Sat, 20 Feb 2021 at 18:17, Louis LaBrunda <Lou at keystone-software.com> wrote:
>
> I was talking about RAM cards (NVDIMM modules) not SSDs:

Aha!

> https://www.newegg.com/p/0RN-0020-000M5?item=0RN-0020-000M5&source=region&nm_mc=knc-googleadwords-pc&cm_mmc=knc-googleadwords-pc-_-pla-_-memory+%28desktop+memory%29-_-0RN-0020-000M5&gclid=CjwKCAiAg8OBBhA8EiwAlKw3kt54KfX2xMGJSIgTUKV4qnQ3LQp8ABciwn7MNm_aMh3FPmV6LN_Q_xoCvG4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
>
> https://www.newegg.com/intel-512gb-ddr-t/p/0RN-0020-00082
>
> http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?4037146_g10e&gclid=CjwKCAiAg8OBBhA8EiwAlKw3khpC5DI7GaeCiwG8JA85tMWgSoOBiY66kGQ3N9UXErZulLmrrPkHvRoCA94QAvD_BwE

*Ouch*.

Still, it's early days. I also think it might be more relevant to
compare to RAM prices than flash SSD prices.

E.g. $3.5K for a 256GB DDR4 DIMM:
https://www.memorycow.co.uk/256gb-ddr4-pc4-23400-2933mhz-288-pin-dimm-ecc-lrdimm-memory-ram

> The idea is that the objects placed in this area of ram are permanent (safe stored) and therefor constitute a database.
> The Smalltalk programmer need only indicate that an object be part of the database, the VM then puts it (and other
> objects it points to) in this special area of memory.  This requires some changed to the OS and VM to police ownership
> of the database but I wouldn't think that would be too complicated.

Seems reasonable.

> As for the price differences between the RAM and SSD cards, my guess (I don't know for sure) is that even though the
> memory can be byte addressable, the SSD cards are configured as 512 byte blocks that must be read or written as blocks.
> That probably brings the price way down.

There is a talk about another PMEM-centric OS on Youtube, Twizzler,
that mentions this in passing.

https://youtu.be/bSNda9EzNOI

It's quite long (~1h20m)  but so bursting with ideas that it's a
packed hour+ even at 1.25x speed, which necessitated pausing and
rewinding a few times for me.


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