This is interesting - so the O/S and MP sits on the I-Ram, and is just pointed at the media on the network? Nice idea, and not one I had seriously considered before, but one I will look into for a multi-room system I am planning. What switches & cabling are you using for the Gigabit network out of interest?
In your server, how are you dealing with data integrity/security - are you running a RAID array, and if so, what sort of coolling are you using in the server to keep the drives temperature down?
Sounds interesting anyway, and I look forward to hearing how this performs - off to google i-Ram now!
EDIT: Ok, I looked at the i-Ram, which seems a good idea, but I had a few concerns. Mainly is that it needs to be perma-powered, or after about 10 hours, it will loose all the data on the RAM. It does have a nifty battery, but it doesn't last forever. A weekend away with someone turning the PC off at the plug would kill the O/S and require a full re-install of the O/S and Media Portal, plus any plug-ins, skins etc.
There's quite a good write up here of the i-Ram:
Gigabyte's i-RAM storage device - The Tech Report - Page 1
However, it certainly seems faster than normal Hard drives for booting, and will be silent. Power consumption seemed to offer no advantages over HDD, but heat should also be better. It got me thinking about alternatives, and I am looking to see what the options are for compact flash drives...someone asked me why couldn't you just use an 8GB thumb drive for the same thing at a fraction of the price, and I guess the answer is to do with the jiggery-pokery required to install Windows on a USB drive at all?
EDIT II: Final thoughts on this (the SSD + Network idea is great!) are that I love the idea of the i-Ram Drive, but am just not sure about the i-Ram concept itself - have you got this already, or is this what you intend to purchase? I have been looking at the SanDisk SSD SATA 5000 2.5" which comes in various sizes, and seems to perform an idenitical function with lower power consumption and without the problem of needing to be powered on 24/7. In the report below, the SanDisk booted XP 54% faster than a standard HDD:
DRAMeXchange - How the SanDisk SSD SATA 5000 2.5" Boosts the PC Performance
another good review here:
Solid State Disk Drives Are Here : Flash-Based Storage's Achilles Heel - Tom's Hardware
There are any number of videos on Youtube showing PC's booting extra fast using SSD, but I am never sure how reliable those sorts of videos are. (I also found a video of someone's baby reading the Financial TImes newspaper, and don't beleive that either!)
I currently have a 160GB boot drive in my HTTPC setup, which I would dearly like to use as extra media strorage, and I think this may be the solution I am looking for to free up this drive.
Once again - it will be great to hear how you get on with this setup - solid state really does move towards the truly silent PC, and should offer better Green Credentials & improvements in heat build up, due to lower power consumption.