Is it possible to build hardware RAM cloning device?

[unbuildpain]

Is it possible to build hardware RAM cloning device? Like a device which would go into the RAM slots of the motherboard, to this device RAM modules have to be connected, and a storage can be connected to this device, which at the press of a button, clones the entire RAM to the storage.

How can I go about building something like this?

 

[danadakk]

Challenging design considering todays motherboard speeds at RAM interface.

But yes, you could have a RAM in its own address space taking same writes as
primary RAM.

Significant design issues at interface.

You could write an API that does the same thing thru an interrupt. Writes out to a USB storage stick
or internal HDD.


Regards, Dana.

 

[unbuildpain]

Challenging design considering todays motherboard speeds at RAM interface.

But yes, you could have a RAM in its own address space taking same writes as
primary RAM.

Significant design issues at interface.

You could write an API that does the same thing thru an interrupt. Writes out to a USB storage stick
or internal HDD.

Regards, Dana.

Will an interrupt be under the control of OS or higher than that? I think an interrupt is passed from the OS to the CPU.

There are software solutions available to copy the contents of the RAM to a file on disk but I thought if I initiate such a procedure a malware might hide itself.

 

[KlausST]

Hi,

Maybe some kind of battery buffered RAM (including refresh for DRAM), where only "writes" are active. Never "read" during normal operation.

So from the beginning you have all data in your parallel RAM bank. You don´t even need to press a button nor do you need to stop/interrupt the processor.
Mind that there will be data in a cache .. means the data in external RAM are not complete...

Klaus

 

[danadakk]

Will an interrupt be under the control of OS or higher than that? I think an interrupt is passed from the OS to the CPU.

There are software solutions available to copy the contents of the RAM to a file on disk but I thought if I initiate such a procedure a malware might hide itself.

You could write a thread that uses a specific non OS managed interrupt I would think.

I assume Microsoft or Linux has resources that would indicate whats free and unused....


Regards, Dana.

 

[ads-ee]

There are software solutions available to copy the contents of the RAM to a file on disk but I thought if I initiate such a procedure a malware might hide itself.

Malware on your computer has to run from the DRAM like any other program, so even if you come up with a hardware RAM cloning solution the currently running malware will still be written to disk along with anything else in DRAM.

Not sure why you are so concerned about malware/virus protection in this DRAM cloning device.

If this was for windows I would find out what the hibernation file API is and see if you can call it without the shutdown afterwards. Hibernation writes out the current contents of memory and can also restore it at a later time, though I have no clue if it's possible to make more than one hibernation image and load them.

 

[unbuildpain]

Malware on your computer has to run from the DRAM like any other program, so even if you come up with a hardware RAM cloning solution the currently running malware will still be written to disk along with anything else in DRAM.

Not sure why you are so concerned about malware/virus protection in this DRAM cloning device.

If this was for windows I would find out what the hibernation file API is and see if you can call it without the shutdown afterwards. Hibernation writes out the current contents of memory and can also restore it at a later time, though I have no clue if it's possible to make more than one hibernation image and load them.

I'm not concerned about virus/malware protection in the cloning device, it won't have any operating system for the virus to function. I'm concerned about virus/malware becoming aware of instructions to copy RAM contents and hiding itself either by removing itself from or RAM, etc.