The Network RamDisk is a device that uses main memory of remote workstations in a workstation cluster (interconnected by a high performance network) as a faster-than-disk storage device.
It has been implemented both on the Linux 2.0.x and the Digital Unix 4.0 operating systems, as a block device driver without any modifications to the kernel code.
A novel reliability policy (Adaptive Parity Caching) has been designed and implemented along with data replication, making the device tolerant to single workstation crashes. The NRD can operate under any of the existing Unix filesystems (e.g. ext2, UFS). Performance of the NRD over an ATM network, is usually 1.5 to 4 times faster than the magnetic disk. For I/O demanding applications perfomance benefits may be much higher.
The design and implementation of this project was funded in part by a Student Grant from the USENIX Association.
Get the Network RamDisk source for Digital Unix 4.0 and Linux 2.0.x : Network_RamDisk-2.0.tar.gz
Code 100% written by Michail Flouris.
For more information on the Network RamDisk go to : Network RamDisk Technical Report