Kickstarter

Project Description Historically, the Linux kernel has always supported some type of RAM disk module. Although they have always been very simple and never could compete with their Solaris and FreeBSD counterparts. The lead developer of this project, Petros Koutoupis, who has a rich Solaris background was missing the technology when on a Linux-based operating system.

While the code and design is independent from it, the ideas for RapidDisk grew out of a side project that Petros had started on Sourceforge.net a couple of years ago and for educational purposes; which in turn was written as an example for an article he had published in a popular Linux magazine. As the educational module grew in popularity, Petros felt that it was only natural to provide the world with something a bit more advanced.

From the beginning, RapidDisk or rxdsk was designed to be used in high performing environments and has been designed with simplicity in mind. Utilizing a user land binary, the system administrator will be capable of dynamically adding new RAM based block devices of varying sizes, removing existing ones to even listing all existing RAM block devices. The rxdsk module has been designed to allocate from the system's memory pages and is capable of addressing memory to support Gigabytes if not a Terabyte of available Random Access Memory.

Project Schedule From the moment that the funding deadline is reached and if 100% or more of funding has been raised, the project will begin a 3 month development cycle.

* Beginning of Month 1: Project Begins * Beginning of Month 2: Alpha Build is released * Beginning of Month 3: Beta Build is released * End of Month 3: Official Stable Build is released

For more information, you can visit the official project page at http://rxdisk.unovyx.com.

To receive routine updates, you can subscribe to the development mailing list. Additional Information The whole purpose and goal of this project is to finish building the framework of our custom storage appliance server referred to as UniStor. You can see UniStor in action in a VirtualBox virtual guest via a tutorial on YouTube. All funding will aid in the development and testing of this kernel module which will include the purchase of all necessary hardware to ensure compatibility, reliability, and stability. Update – 7Feb2011 Some of you may be wondering why introduce a new RAM disk project when tmpfs or something similar can be used? Well the answer is: some applications require a raw block device and not one formatted with a file system and mounted locally. While tmpfs to even ramfs boast a lot of great features and flexibility for faster performing I/O, it is still not capable of serving our needs for our long term goal. That is, this project will be used to build a fault-tolerant DRAM based SSD solution which in turn can be mapped across a SAN via FC Target mode to other Fibre Channel initiators (future support for Infiniband is planned). You cannot do any of that with tmpfs. Also, tmpfs and ramfs are designed for local use only and you suffer from a severe bottleneck in performance if you try to map it across a network. When completed, RapidDisk will be appropriately integrated into UniStor and offered as part of our complete solution.