• corroded@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I don’t understand how this is an advantage. Yes, you can swap RAM with the system powered up, but what happens to the information in the module that was removed? Is the OS doing some kind of RAID-like memory allocation? The article wasn’t clear on how this would actually work.

    • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Servers have had memory mirroring as a feature for years. This seems like a cool extension of that technology. It would be an advantage in some systems where scaling out isn’t an option and single node availability needs to be as high as possible.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Apparently, there’s some coordination mechanism, where you tell the OS that you want to remove a certain memory stick, so it moves all the memory onto other RAM sticks (or uses paging to move it to your hard drive). Only then would you actually physically unplug the memory stick.

      See, for example: https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/mm/memory-hotplug.html
      (Mind that this is kernel documentation. If you actually want to do this, there’s probably some CLI program to make it easier.)

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          I guess, you could see it that way…? The important part is that you don’t have to turn off the whole system. It can continue running without interruption. So, the RAM will be lukewarm when you swap it, but the system will still be hot.

        • Lem453@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          If you really want to be pedantic you could setup raid 1+0 or 5 and live the true RAM hot swapping life

        • lengau@midwest.social
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          4 months ago

          So “warm plugging” is a thing - it means a piece of hardware is detachable while the machine is asleep.

    • morhp@lemmynsfw.com
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      4 months ago

      USB devices are also hotpluggable, but that doesn’t mean that the data stays in the system if you just pull out the HDD.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        But the ram will loose it without being powered.
        This would either require persistent memory or something that could cache the flash for some minutes.