How would you build a RAMzilla?

Recently I wrote a blog post detailing some gear we use for large scale data backups (“How do you backup a ton of stuff?”)

So here is what I’m looking at: Giant RAM drive.

The workstation-class system with 24 GB RAM is under a grand.

Solid server-grade stuff from Dell with 32 GB RAM is $1683. Double the RAM and the price nearly quadruples. But that’s Dell.

The idea of running a primary database or an entire system virtualized on a ramdisk has a huge appeal. We run a lot of stuff in a ramdisk to make a more responsive experience and with the replication to more reliable stuff it makes for an awesome solution.

So what do you think, have you had to build something beefy? I know the easy way is to just go to SSD but the performance is really not the same.