# [expert][tip] Using a RAMdisk to speed up your HDD - and/or reduce SSD trashing



## lemonadesoda (Nov 5, 2009)

This thread is for discussion of RAMdisks and RAMdrives (software and/or hardware devices). I used to be pretty cynical about this stuff. More gimmick than use. But with my recent purchase of a SSD for a netbook, and an inability to "move" temp files to a second HDD, I started looking into RAMdisks as a way to manage the write-thrashing issue. Here are my results, and also the discovery that a RAMdisk can even speed up browsing on a netbook that already has a SSD!

*Definitions*
A RAMdisk is a virtual disk that exists in RAM memory rather than as physical media. A RAMdisk is typically set up in available system RAM. More here

A RAMdrive is like a RAMdisk other than it uses dedicated RAM on separate hardware rather than using an allocation of available system RAM. An example here

RAMdisks/drives can be fully volatile. When the PC is turned off, the power is lost, and the data is lost.

RAMdisks/drives can be battery backed. When the PC is turned off, the data is retained, so long as the battery has charge. Some devices are designed to draw a small about of memory from the PSU standby power so that the battery is always being charged.

RAMdisks/drives can also page-off the data to physical media, like HDD on shutdown. A software utility creates an image, saves it, before shutting off.  It then reloads this image when the computer boots.

*Why use a RAMdisk/drive?*
Memory is much faster than HDD. Obviously. It also turns out to be a lot faster than flash memory (as used by SSDs). It means, with judicious use, you can get significant speedups over a HDD, even over a SSD.  In fact, initial testing on my side, has shown that a RAMdisk can be up to 10x faster than a SSD, and 100x faster than a HDD in some situations. Your milage will vary.

There is another significant benefit of using a RAMdisk if you have a SSD. Write thrashing. No matter how big the SSD cache, or the cleverness of wear-leveling algorithmns, if you CAN reduce the number of (unnecessary) writes, you will improve the half-life of your SSD, and in fact will get significant speed ups due to the way SSDs work... requiring large block erase and write cycles.

Another benefit of a RAMdisk WITHOUT backup, is that when you power down the PC the data is gone. Forever. No need to run system utility cleanups to wipe temp or confidential data.

*Only for desktops? Only for massive RAM workstations?*
No. I currently got myself drawn into using a RAMdisk on my netbook. The netbook was upgraded to SSD and 2GB. I was a little worried about the heavy write-thrashing due to all the internet surfing (tens of thousands of gifs, jpgs and cookies each day), and the antivirus running in the background and scanning and logging tens of times per second.

I have a 256MB RAMdisk on my netbook. Tiny. But about the right size for a days work of use. Give what Windows Task Manager says about memory use, I could probably up this to 512MB on my 2GB machine without a loss of performance hitting the pagefile. I would certainly have it at 512MB if the netbook had 4GB. But there's Atom for you... memory limited on intel chipset.

*Surely no speed gains compared to SSD!*
I kid you not. The netbook  was a lot snappier upgrading from HDD to SSD. But it is faster still with the RAMdisk.

*OK, what are my options?*
I have looked into free RAMdisk solutions. Over the last couple of days, i have used:

Gavotte http://www.techsnack.net/gavotte-ramdisk-free-virtual-hardisk
Dataram http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk
Romex http://www.romexsoftware.com/

I found the gavotte first. It's a utility based directly off the MS code provided on their tech site. What "mr. gavotte" did, was write an installer and management utility for it, rather than having to use registry hacks. How to install it? Check the link I provided above.

The gavotte ramdisk worked well. And it was fast.

I then tried the dataram product. The version is currently in "release candidate" edition, so is likely to be improved soon. I found the dataram product to be faster than the gavotte, especially with random 4K reads/writes. AND dataram had a PAE option, so that you can use more than 4GB even on 32bit OS. If, e.g., you system has 8GB of RAM (like my xeon workstation) but you use a 32bit OS, the RAMdisk can be placed in the "upper 4GB" which then doesnt affect available system RAM. NEAT. Only it bluescreen with me when I tried it. So the dataram product is faster, but not as stable as the gavotte?

I then found romex ramdisk. The website looks a bit cheap and cheesy, but the Free Edition of the software works very well and seems to be the fastest product of all three.

If you try more than one of the above RAMdisks, be SURE TO UNINSTALL/REMOVE the older version (and reboot) before installing the other product.

*Where to install it?*
On my netbook, I have installed 256MB (of 2GB) RAMdisk as a Z: drive.  On my workstation, I have installed a 512MB (of 4GB) RAMdisk as a Z: drive. I would like to use PAE, but this is not available on gavotte, unstable on dataram, and a pay-for only option with romex. All programs have an option to automatically create a \TEMP folder. Select this, so that you can then use it for system TEMP files. See later how to do this.

*What do you do with it?*
You point all temp directories to it. e.g. internet temps, and windows temps. How?

IE > Tools > Internet options > Settings > General tab / Temporary internet files > Settings > Move folder > browse to z:

Rightclick My Computer > Properties > Environment Variables > then change as many user and system temps as you want to Z:

*What kind of speedups can you expect?*

BEFORE






With a SSD





With a RAMdisk





Yes, just sit back a minute and reflect on those figures. Now go to ccleaner and analyse... and look at those tens or hundreds of thousands of temp files. Wouldnt they fit better in the RAMdisk?

*Put the pagefile in the RAMdisk?*
General answer: No. Don't reduce your memory footprint to then put the pagefile in there. You are stealing with one hand to give to the other.

Specific answer: If you have COPIOUS amounts of unused memory, esp. if you are running 32bit OS with PAE, then yes, put the pagefile there. It is much faster to hit memory than a HDD or SSD. But keep the general answer in mind. 

*Summary*
I think that many TPU members would benefit from setting up a small RAMdisk for their temp files.  It will cost you 256-512MB of system memory, but I am sure you will "feel" the benefits.

*Other software? Other setups? Your experience?*
Please use the thread to discuss any other RAMdisk you might have sued or tested. Especially some of the commercial expensive ones. Link away. However, please add some feedback on why you would recommend an alternative over the suggestions above. Also, share your before-and-after results.

I am curious to see the performance results of some of our i7 friends running DDR3.


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 5, 2009)

ill give it a shot and post my results


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## LittleLizard (Nov 5, 2009)

that could be useful as i have a p4 with 2gb of memory and no way to use them all. also my ide hdd is fuckinly slow. i think ill try it

EDIT: now that im thinking, i will lose the information in there as soon as i turn of the pc (i turn off a power strip for saving energy). so is only for temp files and if its that, how i configure it to use specifically for , for example the firefox cache)?


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 5, 2009)

*Change temp files in firefox (from google)*

I believe there are add-ins to do this easily, but manually:

1./ go to the URL: about:config
2./ enter the dragons lair (!)
3./ Right-click somewhere in the list and select New > String, call it browser.cache.disk.parent_directory
4./ Enter the value z:\temp


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 5, 2009)

no ramdisk




ramdisk


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## THRiLL KiLL (Nov 5, 2009)

ack the days of dos come back to haunt us!..  (im showing my age)

great writeup =) you should list the most common locations for stuff like the temp folder for windows, firefox and ect.

on a sidenote. when is the ramdisk created? on boot-up or afterlog in? if its on boot-up we can point the windows page file to this =)


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 5, 2009)

i believe its on bootup,or windows would throw a fit because there is no temp folder


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 5, 2009)

AthlonX2 said:


> no ramdisk
> http://img.techpowerup.org/091105/stock.png
> ramdisk
> http://img.techpowerup.org/091105/ram.png


I bet you ran that ramdisk bench *twice*, just to check  Did you smile, or did you just drop your jaw a little? Mine did. 
Now set your internet temps and system temps to the z: drive and report back with your "user experience". You can "afford to spend" 512MB of your 4GB on the ramdisk IMO.


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 5, 2009)

did that,one major thing i notice is while browsing the net,going back and forth from webpages they load alot faster,im assuming because windows is accesing from the ramdisk,im curious to see what would happen if someone ran there pagefile from this


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## THRiLL KiLL (Nov 5, 2009)

ill have to check it out =)

i know if there is no swap file, you cant log into windows =) (you will get to the log in screen, and then it will kick you back out to the login screen when u try yo log in)


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## MilkyWay (Nov 5, 2009)

AthlonX2 said:


> did that,one major thing i notice is while browsing the net,going back and forth from webpages they load alot faster,im assuming because windows is accesing from the ramdisk,im curious to see what would happen if someone ran there pagefile from this



wouldnt that be just like disabling your pagefile and running it just off the ram instead?

i know that like 8gb and high amounts of ram you can afford to have only a minute pagefile


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## Cuzza (Nov 6, 2009)

Wow... Installation was so easy (Gavotte). I've gone 256mb and moved all my temps there, everything is running sweetly. Hard to say if it's made any difference yet. Will have to do a couple of unscientific tests. Will post benchies soon.


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## Cuzza (Nov 6, 2009)

This is on my Samsung NP-Q45 Notebook

SSD result (Super Talent 64gb - low end part):






RAMdisk result:


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## AphexDreamer (Nov 6, 2009)

WOW, I can't believe I never thought to search for this. Awesome.

I'd like to note that the free edition of Romex will not work on 64 bit systems.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that the Gavot isn't working for me on 64 bit. Looking for a 64 bit version.


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 6, 2009)

^ try http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk/download-ramdisk


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## AphexDreamer (Nov 6, 2009)

Can someone show me what temp folders to move? Win 7 Also how would I just move it to the other drive?

Also it wouldn't be wise to install anything like game because I would just lose it on restart right?

Ok I figured it out.


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## stevednmc (Nov 6, 2009)

sticky!!!!!


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## Polarman (Nov 6, 2009)

I've read about this long time ago but never really bothered. Maybe because ram was more expensive during those days.


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 6, 2009)

now im using mozilla... i only have the system tweaks now... may someone put up a useable list, which apps can benefit from a RAM-drive?


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 6, 2009)

In addition to the IE temporary internet files change to z:, firefox configuration change, and the system and user changes in Environment Variables (all described above), I noticed an improvement with WinRAR, for instantaneous unzips:


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## AphexDreamer (Nov 6, 2009)

you can use this to make the RAMdrive use Readyboost. I don't know if it would help at all but since Readyboost is supposed to accommodate temp files and such it might help.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Nov 6, 2009)

Yeah I recently threw in a 2x1GB set along with my usual 2x2GB to play with a RAM disk. The 4GB kit is 1066 running at 1081 at 2.12v and the 2Gb kit can do 1200 with 2.2 so all I did in BIOS was bump the NB volts a little. A quick Google before and now my own experience tells me mismatched DIMMs for 6GB works just fine but you sure never hear of anyone doing it...


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 6, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> firefox configuration change



How?^^


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## Wrigleyvillain (Nov 6, 2009)

^ Google "move Firefox cache"


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 6, 2009)

POST #4, young man! I'm not much of a firefox user, but I tested it, and it works. See, here is the folder it creates:


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 6, 2009)

ah,now i feel like im back in school


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## Wrigleyvillain (Nov 6, 2009)

Or, yeah, uh read post #4


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 6, 2009)

lol, now that was easily overseeable


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## Asylum (Nov 6, 2009)

Looks interesting.
Ill check it out.


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## Asylum (Nov 6, 2009)

Heres my results from creating a Ramdisc.
Man this thing is fast.


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## Cuzza (Nov 6, 2009)

So I tried some browser benchmarks to see if the RAMdisk had sped firefox up at all.






No really appreciable gain there (about 1.5%)

And just for kicks, Sunspider java benchmark






Not that I was expecting anything, but no difference. (I suppose it doesn't need a cache)


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## Cuzza (Nov 6, 2009)

Also just for kicks, I installed Opera directly onto the RAMdisk. WHOAR does that load up quickly! Click the icon and BAM the window appears. Compared to Firefox and IE which take 2-3 seconds

EDIT: Just to be fair, tried Opera installed on the SSD as well. It loads up much faster than IE and Firefox, but not as fast as it did from the RAMdisk


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 6, 2009)

The (possible) problem with your benchmarks is that they are 99% based on testing the rendering speed of the browser engine, scripts, activx, flash... and NOTHING to do with disk access, saving and loading hundreds of gifs fpgs htmls cookies etc. And therefore the results are irrelevant to the "browser experience"


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## Cuzza (Nov 6, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> The (possible) problem with your benchmarks is that they are 99% based on testing the rendering speed of the browser engine, scripts, activx, flash... and NOTHING to do with disk access.



Just what I was thinking. Are there any other tests I could run?


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## Tartaros (Nov 7, 2009)

Has anyone tried to use ramdisk as pagefile? I have curiosity..


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

Tartaros said:


> Has anyone tried to use ramdisk as pagefile? I have curiosity..



its pointless.

most programs only use the pagefile when you run out of ram, so using ram to make the pagefile results in the pagefile being used sooner (which is ram)... instead of just using the ram in the first place.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Nov 7, 2009)

someone with a massive chunk of ram should install a game like crysis on a ramdisk and see how it loads / performs because if its good id use it to install a game and run it and just save the save files elsewhere


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> someone with a massive chunk of ram should install a game like crysis on a ramdisk and see how it loads / performs because if its good id use it to install a game and run it and just save the save files elsewhere



games run ridiculously awesome.

i got bored and ran a few games from a 4GB ram drive with 4GB left for everything else... load times are cool 


lemonadesoda:

its really, REALLY important that you state what OS's you tested with. Last time i did this, a program that worked fine in XP destroyed a windows vista install - i'd hate for the same to happen here with windows 7, thinking it had been tested/works great on their OS.


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## LittleLizard (Nov 7, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> *Change temp files in firefox (from google)*
> 
> I believe there are add-ins to do this easily, but manually:
> 
> ...



do i have to replace browser for firefox¿


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## Cuzza (Nov 7, 2009)

Here's my very unscientific testing methodology for testing if having browser cache on the RAMdisk speeds up browsing:

1: Find some webpages with a lot of data to cache - in this case the GIF thread at GN (about 150mb of GIFs over 4 thread pages)

2: Load them up sequentially in Firefox

3: Select "work offline" mode to prevent connection issues etc hampering progress

4: Use backward/forward buttons to scroll through the thread pages back and forth 3 times, waiting each time until entire page is loaded and "done" appears at the bottom. Time how long it takes to do this

5: Repeat 1-4 with the cache set to varying locations (RAMdisk, HDD, SSD)

RESULTS:

Cache in SSD: 69.4 seconds
Cache in RAMdisk: 68.7 seconds

Sooooo.... is my testing meaningless? Or does RAMdisk make simply make no difference?


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

its so small its likely loaded into ram anyway.


i've got a 2GB ramdrive, and apart from fun with sending files over the network at max speeds, i cant see a use for it


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## Cuzza (Nov 7, 2009)

Well, I tried, and gave up on the idea. It seemed to speed up my notebook but that may have just been my imagination. More to the point I want to be able to turn it off without losing my cache because I'm on a rather slow connection most of the time, and I keep a big cache. So thanks but no thanks RAMdisk


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## somebody (Nov 7, 2009)

Mussels said:


> its pointless.
> 
> most programs only use the pagefile when you run out of ram, so using ram to make the pagefile results in the pagefile being used sooner (which is ram)... instead of just using the ram in the first place.


*+1*

Dunno about loading games from the RAM disk since you need to copy the game from the hard disk to the RAM disk to start with so all you've done maybe is moved your loading time to copying from the hard disk. A bit like superfetch, but customized.


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 7, 2009)

i bet this will be interesting, when they come up with non volatile types of ram... i read of a carbon nanotube one, that wasnt volatile on shutdown, or others that only needed such small load, that a simple LI-Ion battery should power them for 100 years


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## Athlon2K15 (Nov 7, 2009)

Cuzza said:


> Also just for kicks, I installed Opera directly onto the RAMdisk. WHOAR does that load up quickly! Click the icon and BAM the window appears. Compared to Firefox and IE which take 2-3 seconds
> 
> EDIT: Just to be fair, tried Opera installed on the SSD as well. It loads up much faster than IE and Firefox, but not as fast as it did from the RAMdisk



how do you install opera on a ramdisk,when the pc shuts off data leaves the memory..or so i thought?


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

AthlonX2 said:


> how do you install opera on a ramdisk,when the pc shuts off data leaves the memory..or so i thought?



some of these softwares have a method where they dump/restore the data to and from the HDD on shutdown.


I've got a portable Iron and portable firefox, they may be cool on a ramdrive...


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## Cuzza (Nov 7, 2009)

AthlonX2 said:


> how do you install opera on a ramdisk,when the pc shuts off data leaves the memory..or so i thought?



Because I didn't shut down while it was installed. RAMdisk acts just like any hard disk, so I installed it, ran the few tests I wanted to run, then uninstalled. no worries.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Nov 7, 2009)




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## lemonadesoda (Nov 7, 2009)

Cuzza said:


> Sooooo.... is my testing meaningless? Or does RAMdisk make simply make no difference?



I think your test results are valid for your test, but perhaps also meaningless as a true test of the benefits of a RAMdisk.

I did (part) of your test. What I see is JUST A FEW FILES in the internet cache but they are massive gifs, 1-5MB big each. So why is it taking 60seconds to do your test? I think you are testing your CPUs ability to process the html page and these large gifs.  This is the "same" test concept like the peacekeeper you did before, only using gifs not flash and activex. I dont think it is really testing the benefit of multiple random read/write of small files. The bottleneck is your laptop's CPU.

It may be true, that for a lot of webbrowsing, the RAMdisk isnt a lot faster than a SSD. We are CPU limited once we have the SSD (unlike with a HDD). But is this observation also true for more powerful workstations, or when we are not CPU limited?

The RAMdisk still has two valuable benefits in the SSD situation. i) significantly saves write thrashing, and ii) security of volatile data getting wiped on poweroff.

If you re-read my OP, that is why I investigated RAMdisk in the firstplace. I wasnt expecting a speedup. That was my surprise... and I have now installed RAMdisks on ALL our PCs. It makes a bigimprovement to the HDD based systems, and it gives me peace of mind on the SSD systems that the lifetime has just been extended by avoiding write thrashing.


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## RevengE (Nov 7, 2009)

Nice writeup. thanks


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## Nosada (Nov 7, 2009)

Thanks for the info, but I have an instant question:

Is it possible to make a ramdisk, install something on it and have it write the files to disk on shutdown? Imagine you could install a game on there, have it load from HD to ramdisk on boot, and be able to use it like that, without having to reinstall every time?

I've been looking for a solution like this for a long time, this would do WONDERS for constantly loading games like MMO's.


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

Nosada said:


> Thanks for the info, but I have an instant question:
> 
> Is it possible to make a ramdisk, install something on it and have it write the files to disk on shutdown? Imagine you could install a game on there, have it load from HD to ramdisk on boot, and be able to use it like that, without having to reinstall every time?
> 
> I've been looking for a solution like this for a long time, this would do WONDERS for constantly loading games like MMO's.



i said this a few posts ago, some of the softwares do exactly that - they move the data to a HDD on shutdown, and restore it on powerup.


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## Nosada (Nov 7, 2009)

Mussels said:


> i said this a few posts ago, some of the softwares do exactly that - they move the data to a HDD on shutdown, and restore it on powerup.


>.<; ... don't mind me, I'm old, deaf, blind and senile 

/goes out to buy more RAM


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

here you go


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 7, 2009)

Be aware that most modern games are massive and probably wont fit on your ramdisk... unless you have a 16GB machine and allocated 8GB to the ramdisk...

I you want to speed up your game load times... google a bit. Depending on the engine there are tricks. Games normally compress their map data, so not only is the PC loading the data of HDD, it also has to decompress it. With Quake engines... you can actually "unzip" the game data manually. The game takes about 2-3x as much HDD space... but the load times are very very fast esp. if your games are on a separate partition that you keep defragmented.

@mussels,

check the two boxes: "create TEMP directory" and "disk label RAMdisk"

@all

in mussels example, install your applications, opera, firefox etc. on the RAMDisk. Make sure you "save disk image at shutdown" and also "load at startup".  Then reboot. Now lock your img file and turn off the "save at shutdown" option... You will have nicely locked the applications, saved shutdown speed, and of course you dont save all the temp stuff.


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

oh i know lemonade, i've done all this before. i was providing that merely so that people know where to find the options 

(and i have many, varied, portable programs - firefox, Iron (its a variant of chrome), etc)


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 7, 2009)

Sorry, mussels, the info was more rhetorical for others reading your post, rather than the message being directed at you.

Bah! I cant get the PAE option working on my workstation without a crash  ... it would really help out since it is HDD based and running 32bit OS, so 4GB of RAM is unused... so, yesterday, I saw a Gigabyte RAMdrive loaded with 4GB on ebay, and bought it! All temps and scratchfiles will be moved to the RAMdrive. Should speed things up a bit.


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## Mussels (Nov 7, 2009)

PAE is fairly incompatible, which is why its hidden away and not enabled by default on desktop OS's


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## Odin Eidolon (Nov 7, 2009)

for those interested, Ramdisks have been introduced in the linux kernel since kernel 2.4.

I'll be testing the Ramdisk option with 512mb when i get my notebook (corsair p64, p8700, 4gb ddr2 800, 64bit) under Arch.
Do you think that 1gb vs 512mb would make any difference?


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 7, 2009)

with romex, i was able to do a 1000mb ramdisk, in the OS invisible memory... so far no crash


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 7, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> with romex, i was able to do a 1000mb ramdisk, in the OS invisible memory... so far no crash


LUCKYBASTARDSCHWEINHUND! Grrrr


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 7, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> LUCKYBASTARDSCHWEINHUND! Grrrr



HÖLLENHUND,my friend


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Nov 7, 2009)

Minimum transfer rate goes up consistently at 4 GBs vs 512 MBs.


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## somebody (Nov 7, 2009)

Mussels said:


> PAE is fairly incompatible, which is why its hidden away and not enabled by default on desktop OS's



AFAIK all windows 32-bit client OSes since XP SP2 silently enable PAE by default unless your CPU doesn't support the nx bit. It's the memory that is remapped by the BIOS above 4GB that is hidden away, or just plain ignored.

Another RAMDisk software is superspeed http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php It can also use the memory 32-bit windows ignores but it's not free.


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## Fitseries3 (Nov 8, 2009)




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## Fitseries3 (Nov 8, 2009)

holy fuck... this is 10k+ higher than ive ever gotten


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## 3dsage (Nov 8, 2009)

Im really amazed by this, just this afternoon. I was blown away by my new SSD ( Warp V2 32GB) and now this just eclipses it in benches. 
But I noticed it useses alot of cpu percentange, amazing nonetheless.

BTW this ramdrive is on some OCZ DDR 400 2.5-3-3-7 1T
Also im using Dataram ramdisk on Vista 64, for reference.


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## niko084 (Nov 8, 2009)

Old but good way to gain some speed.

Glad you brought it up.

For most use, it wont make major difference in what you see,  because of the way it works it's going to throw benchmarks for a complete loop, worse than physx points in 3dmark. :LOL:

Good use for those that have SSD's or 8+ GB of ram!


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## Mussels (Nov 8, 2009)

one downer: i cant remove the damn thing.

you cant disable the ramdrive without a reboot as it "cant end the service"


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 8, 2009)

Mussels said:


> one downer: i cant remove the damn thing.
> 
> you cant disable the ramdrive without a reboot as it "cant end the service"



you use romex? it works fabolous for me, my drive is in the hidden memory, and i can enable/disable like i want. really easy ;-)


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## Mussels (Nov 8, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> you use romex? it works fabolous for me, my drive is in the hidden memory, and i can enable/disable like i want. really easy ;-)



i used the dataram one.


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## Velvet Wafer (Nov 8, 2009)

Mussels said:


> i used the dataram one.



use romex.if youre lucky, you will be very pleased


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## Mussels (Nov 8, 2009)

well thats lame... romex free only works in x86 operating systems.


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## SNiiPE_DoGG (Nov 8, 2009)

hmmm, time to put some of my 8 gigs of ram to use


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## Asylum (Nov 8, 2009)

I use the SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus.
Seems to do the best job out of the bunch.


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## hat (Nov 8, 2009)

I can't get my temp files to actually go to the ramdisk. Browsing the internet is hellaciously fast but it sucks because it all goes away if I reboot. When I run the CrystalDiskMark utility I get regular hard drive speeds. I set my TEMP and TMP variables to H: (my ramdisk) and I don't get the fast speeds.


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## King Wookie (Nov 8, 2009)

thx for the guide gents.
Today I have learnt something new.


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## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

Can someone help explain how to set my google chrome temp/cache folder to the ram drive?

the access time is like nothing lol.. super fast reads


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## Cuzza (Nov 8, 2009)

@lemonadesoda, you're probably right, there are other bottlenecks, in which case I could probably have a RAMdisk 10x faster than the RAM I have and it wouldn't help. 

If I had a more powerful system to test with, and a suitable HDD to compare, I probably would. but I don't. 

Perhaps a better test would be similar to what I did above, but using webpages with hundreds of small images? Maybe I'll try that next.

TBH it was the speedup you mentioned that interested me the most. I'm not worried about write thrashing - I have a lot of spare disk space so wear levelling should be effective. And I'm a pretty light user, not on the web 8 hours a day or anything, therefore the lifetime of this drive should last me well up to the point where I upgrade it again or sell this notebook. I can certainly see the usefulness of having the cache and temps volatile for wiping at poweroff - for data security / no one can see what pr0n I have my dodgy mates have been looking at . But as I said before, storing a large cache is a bigger priority right now.

Ooooh as typing this I'm reading more thread and considering the idea of putting a few apps on RAMdisk permanently, with the load disk image option. I'll get back to you on that one.


----------



## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

I rebooted now I can't run, uninstall, repair or reinstall RAMdisk .. says invalid H:\ not found

had to do a system restore to reinstall ramdisk after manual deleting the software


----------



## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

hat said:


> I can't get my temp files to actually go to the ramdisk. Browsing the internet is hellaciously fast but it sucks because it all goes away if I reboot. When I run the CrystalDiskMark utility I get regular hard drive speeds. I set my TEMP and TMP variables to H: (my ramdisk) and I don't get the fast speeds.



Try going into H:\ and adding two folders TMP and TEMP.. if you have not already.


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## Cuzza (Nov 8, 2009)

Here's something irritating that I don't think has been mentioned yet. From the Romex website:

note: Free Edition only supports Windows 2000/XP(32-bit)/2003(32-bit)

IE Romex RAMdisk don't work on Vista/7

I'm on vista and I can't get the Dataram one to work either (that is the non-Beta version) going to try the Beta now. If not, guess I'm stuck with Gavotte, which works fine but is relatively limited.


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## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

In the first page of this thread someone posted the link to the 64bit beta win7


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## Mussels (Nov 8, 2009)

Cuzza said:


> Here's something irritating that I don't think has been mentioned yet. From the Romex website:
> 
> note: Free Edition only supports Windows 2000/XP(32-bit)/2003(32-bit)
> 
> ...



dataram works for me, but its buggy. and last page i posted that there is no free x64 for the romex 



shevanel said:


> In the first page of this thread someone posted the link to the 64bit beta win7



not that i can see.


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## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk/download-ramdisk

thats what im using on WIN 7 64, pick the one at the very top

Read times are rediculous, did you see my screenie up there ^^


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## Cuzza (Nov 8, 2009)

shevanel said:


> In the first page of this thread someone posted the link to the 64bit beta win7



Not for Romex. That's the Dataram one which doesn't work for me.

Also, I failed with the Dataram Beta. So I am stuck with Gavot. I was reading the Gavot readme, it goes on about registry parameters, but it's a bit above my head. I'm wondering if I can use the registry parameters to get Gavot to auto-load the Ramdisk image on startup???

Edit: Oops beaten to the post. ignore what i said pre-edit


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 8, 2009)

If you google Gavotte, you will find (IIRC) it had been abandoned by Mr. Gavotte himself, but some enterprising chinese have added to it.  I found later editions built and availble on some .cn websites... but didnt find them to be any more useful... so I stuck the original version into the thread. But if you are interested... go search... you might find something useful, esp. if you can read chinese


----------



## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

*LOL 3.5 GB / second
*


----------



## xBruce88x (Nov 8, 2009)

hmm... i found this little guy that might be of interest... if you can afford it.

64GB 5.25bay ram drive

has a slot for CF to backup data, the built in battery can keep it charged for 4hrs with 16gb. i'm sure someone will find a way to put a larger batterypack in there.


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## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

Even though it benches really fast, I cannot think of any uses for this. 

Would this benefit using fraps and taking demos/recordings of gameplay? since it can be written faster?


----------



## Mussels (Nov 8, 2009)

shevanel said:


> Even though it benches really fast, I cannot think of any uses for this.
> 
> Would this benefit using fraps and taking demos/recordings of gameplay? since it can be written faster?



in any situation where read/write/IOPS is the limitation, a ramdrive will boost speed.

the problem is FINDING those situations...


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## Cuzza (Nov 8, 2009)

Turns out it's pretty simple to load the RAMdisk image at startup with Gavotte. Ramdisk.exe accepts an image file as its argument so that the image file can be loaded automatically. I just added the necessary command line to the registry to load on startup. Which I actually found rather complicated because my command line knowledge is extremely rusty, and I had no idea where in the registry to put the command (google helps!) lol

Now to figure out how to auto-save the image on shutdown and I'll be in business....


----------



## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

Cuzza said:


> Turns out it's pretty simple to load the RAMdisk image at startup with Gavotte. Ramdisk.exe accepts an image file as its argument so that the image file can be loaded automatically. I just added the necessary command line to the registry to load on startup. Which I actually found rather complicated because my command line knowledge is extremely rusty, and I had no idea where in the registry to put the command (google helps!) lol
> 
> Now to figure out how to auto-save the image on shutdown and I'll be in business....



how large is your ramdisk and what will be it's use?


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## Cuzza (Nov 8, 2009)

Don't know yet, don't have it set up yet. I'm just messing around for fun. When I work out how to get the image autosaved I plan to load some apps on there (such as firefox) to see how much faster it runs.


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## Mussels (Nov 8, 2009)

Cuzza said:


> Don't know yet, don't have it set up yet. I'm just messing around for fun. When I work out how to get the image autosaved I plan to load some apps on there (such as firefox) to see how much faster it runs.



1. Program loads
2. click .exe
3. ??????
4. Profit




(yes, it loads before you click it )


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## shevanel (Nov 8, 2009)

meh, the internet browsers do not seem much faster than they already were.


Click this link and scroll down until you see the UT3 pic loading.. for me its just under 4 seconds on ramdisk or hdd.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=50940&page=2


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## hat (Nov 8, 2009)

Well I could only use the second one cause I'm on 64-bit xp and it sucked. It caused a lot of lockups and problems when I tried to stop the driver to change something or to uninstall it, or even to start it (runtime error '481').

Internet browsing was hellasiously fast with this thing though.

I like the ANS-9010 cause it gives you a 64GB big hard drive and it won't forget everything provided the battery is charged. Very, very fast. Imagine loading a game on it...


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Nov 8, 2009)

Dataram has worked perfectly for me on Windows 7 64, both making it and stopping it. Wonder what's making it not work for others?


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## oli_ramsay (Nov 8, 2009)

I've been using Dataram, setting a 512MB drive for opera portable, was gonna use it for Songbird (a media player) too but it was a bit buggy.

What other uses do you guys suggest?  It speeds up opening Opera and the loading of cached images in opera, but takes ages to startup/shutdown my OS.

Any other ideas to use this cool little tool for?


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 16, 2009)

Just found another Ramdisk product, and it looks very easy to use/setup for anyone that hasnt tried so far.

http://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/

Softperfect also do an excellent free lan scanner ... which I can definitely recomment.


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> Just found another Ramdisk product, and it looks very easy to use/setup for anyone that hasnt tried so far.
> 
> http://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/
> 
> Softperfect also do an excellent free lan scanner ... which I can definitely recomment.



32 bit only


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## HalfAHertz (Nov 16, 2009)

I've been using dataram for over a week now on the lappy. Can't say for sure that there's a speed up but it has deffinately reduced HD noise and thrashing. I moved my temp files and mozilla cache. Am also using it as WinRAR's temp folder.

The only problem that popped up so far is whe I was trying to install IBM's Lotus Symphony office package and there wasn't enough space in my TEMP folder for the atchive. Increased the size, rebooted and that solved the issue...


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## shevanel (Nov 16, 2009)

I installed firefox onto the ramdrive but still had to change the default cache directory and this is how...

type about:config in firefox

right click and select new string

enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, and chose parent directory location ie: H:\FFcache

and it'll put a sub-folder named cache below that.


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## Arctucas (Nov 16, 2009)

Romex 768MB

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll305/Arctucas/RAMDISKbenches.jpg


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## Asylum (Nov 16, 2009)

This is the best one out. it has trial versions for free.
The plus version is the best.
http://www.superspeed.com/download/trialversions.php


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## shevanel (Nov 17, 2009)

had to uninstall dataram.. it blitzed my dvdrw.. whenever i wanted to burn a dvd it was fine, but installing from the dvd completely choked out the pc with minimal cpu usage..

i uninstalled dataram and defaulted my temp folder and now its fixed. im baffled too.


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## HalfAHertz (Nov 17, 2009)

shevanel said:


> had to uninstall dataram.. it blitzed my dvdrw.. whenever i wanted to burn a dvd it was fine, but installing from the dvd completely choked out the pc with minimal cpu usage..
> 
> i uninstalled dataram and defaulted my temp folder and now its fixed. im baffled too.



I think you ran itno the same problem as me earlier. You just ran out of space on your ram drive. When you have your temp folder on a HD, it's not limited in size. Windows doesn't know you moved it to a ram drive and started writing the dvd info on it...


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## ataxy (Nov 17, 2009)

ok i am trying to use the unused ram of my m1710 to make a ramdisk, ramdisk plus does not seem to be able to use it, i havent tryed romex ramdisk for now all i can say is that it seems that ie8 is slightly faster in win7 ultimate will try romex to see if i can use the unused ram will report back


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 17, 2009)

shevanel said:


> had to uninstall dataram.. it blitzed my dvdrw.. whenever i wanted to burn a dvd it was fine, but installing from the dvd completely choked out the pc with minimal cpu usage..
> 
> i uninstalled dataram and defaulted my temp folder and now its fixed. im baffled too.



When you say "installing from the dvd" what do you mean? Any old .exe or msi installer? Installers can sometimes have massive temp requirements due to compressed data. (Installer needs to unzip the install data... and guess where it does that?).

Hmm. I wonder if it is possible to make the Windows installer use a different temp directory. Otherwise, installing big setups will require temporarily disabling the ramdisk. Shame.

A clever RAMdisk driver would use physical HDD space once it ran out of memory. We'd better pass that info/request on to the RAMdisk programmers: Hybrid-RAMdisk drivers needs an X size for virtual, and a Y size for physical (set to zero for a pure RAMdisk). Oh, this does sound a bit complicated 

Yes, perhaps my suggestion is techo overkill. But there may be uses... esp. in a 24/7 system.

But in your case, why not just run a script
*set temp=c:\temp *when you want to install, and another, 
*set temp=z:\temp *when you have finished and want to use the RAMdrive again.

More info here: http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/environment.htm


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## mlee49 (Nov 17, 2009)

I have a question,  after one would setup/establish this new space is the intent to load programs to that partition and run it from there or just 'cache' temp files to reduce access from the HDD?

Example:
I want Game X to run faster so I create a 2GB RamDisc partition and install Game X.  Game X is now running from my ram, thus increasing load times significantly.  

Does the install of the game dissapear at a power cycle?  I'm assuming yes after reading all the comments.


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 17, 2009)

mlee... read the whole thread! Your question is already answered. And why not try one of the tools and show some benchies 

With most of the RAMdisk drivers discussed here, you have an option to select "save image to HDD" on shutdown, which will also reinstall on next boot.  So no, you dont lose your data.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Nov 17, 2009)

do this i shall


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## burtram (Nov 18, 2009)

Thought I'd chime in as well. Using the Romex software, I was able to create a RAMdisk using the invisible memory with the free edition. Out of curiosity... would this speed up the process of converting videos that aren't very large? like 500-700mb into smaller file sizes? using a portable video converter, or say, installing virtualdub into the ramdisk?


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## Mussels (Nov 18, 2009)

burtram said:


> Thought I'd chime in as well. Using the Romex software, I was able to create a RAMdisk using the invisible memory with the free edition. Out of curiosity... would this speed up the process of converting videos that aren't very large? like 500-700mb into smaller file sizes? using a portable video converter, or say, installing virtualdub into the ramdisk?



no, because those tasks are CPU limited, not HDD limited


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## burtram (Nov 18, 2009)

I didn't think so, but i figured I'd ask anyway.  =)


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## mlee49 (Nov 18, 2009)

Using Dataram, 1GB partition compared to my raid0 array:







Wow, I'm impressed.  I need to put this to use.


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 19, 2009)

Your 4K speeds are S.L.O.W.  Very SSSLLLOOOWWW.

Try formating it as FAT32 or NTFS and try again.


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## Nailezs (Dec 5, 2009)

where are the temp windwos settings for vista? i havent had any luck finding them

EDIT:
ok, disregard my above question, as i've given up on the ramdisks.

but, when using the dataram ramdisk utility it wont let me stop the ramdisk. when i tell it to stop, i jsut get a bsod saying that windows stopped a driver from corrupting the system. anyone else having this problem?

i tried rebooting, hiting f8, and hitting "disable driver signature enforcement" but still got the bsod, even when right clicking the utility and running as administrator.

i've done some poking around, and the ramdisk utility is not a start-up feature that can be disabled in msconfig. however, i did notice that now in device manager i have a "DataRam Ramdisk" tab, upon which the ramdisk is under. since it seems that windows doesnt load/activate the ramdisk until it loads the driver upon bootup (as the ramdisk does not come up in safe mode, and there are no listings for it in msconfig, or i should say that everything in msconfig i am aware of) could i simply uninstall the driver, to force the ramdisk to stop, and then uninstall the utility without any problems?


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## SummerDays (Dec 21, 2009)

Ram Disk + Ramboost?


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## Imhoteps (Dec 28, 2009)

Have any1 tried to put Chrome`s cashe onto RAMDisk? I`ve googled some tips, but they all seem too complicated http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=move+chrome+cache+location&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=. Any easier solutions?
P.S. lemonade! Great tips, man. Thx!


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 28, 2009)

i really want to see someone with a massive amount of ram load crysis into a ram drive and see the loading speeds  im also betting texture pop in would be all but gone  makes me wish i had 32gigs of ram


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## lemonadesoda (Jan 3, 2010)

Ok. For Xmas I bought myself an Gigabyte i-RAM. Going CHEAP-CHEAP on ebay. Why? Because what I paid for it was not more than just the RAM price, plus I am on 32-bit W2K3, so expanding system RAM and trying to RAMDISK isnt an option. (In theory it is, but my tests with PAE were not successful and met with BSOD).

So here is the comparison of Original HDD, system ram RAMdisk, and Gigabyte i-RAM. Notice that the i-RAM is contrained by SATA-150 speeds, so doesnt outpace the system RAM based RAMdisk in sequential. But look where it counts... the random read/writes. It's a hell of a lot faster than a HDD even it not quite up there with the system ramdisks 

My temp files now point to the i-RAM, and I have turned off Romex since I dont need it anymore.  

Memory organisation: 4GB system 32bit W2K3, and 4GB Ramdisk on i-RAM

1./ WD Greendrive. (No comments, wish I never bought this slow CLUNKY noisy pretender).






2./ Romex RAMdisk Scratch that. I havent a clue what type of ramdisk this is... I think it is corrupted install of gavotte and needs deleting





Please note that these speeds are nowhere near the speeds in my original post. See next post for new installs of ramdisks; i think the above result is buggy.

3./ Gigabyte i-RAM





The i-RAM is 30-50x faster than the HDD, where it counts, the randon read/write. That's OK with me, even if not as good as a system ram disk. _It all depends what ram you have got spare and can allocate to a ramdisk. I'm limited due to my 32bit W2K3 setup_


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## lemonadesoda (Jan 3, 2010)

OK, comparison with the latest Dataram RAMdisk utility 3.5.130






And the latest Romex (free) 1.16.2127.1603






Both of which are a lot faster than the i-RAM. Therefore, if you have the option, buy more system ram and create a RAMdisk in the system ram, rather than buy a gigabyte i-RAM over SATA.


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## lemonadesoda (Jan 3, 2010)

OK, comparison of i-RAM with different formats.

1./ NTFS size 4096





2./ FAT32 default size





3./ NTFS size 2048





4./ NTFS size 1024





5./ NTFS size 512





6./ NTFS size 4096 again





Conclusion: NTFS faster than FAT32. Not a lot of difference across format sector size on NTFS, but 4096 wins marginally.


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## BUCK NASTY (Jan 9, 2010)

Great thread Lemonadesoda! FireFox runs so much smoother now.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Jan 9, 2010)

http://techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1709678#post1709678


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## Solaris17 (Mar 17, 2010)

was doing some system mantinence today and gave this a go made a 1gb ramdisk and made it my pagefile


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## LifeOnMars (Mar 17, 2010)

Anyone tried this with a game like oblivion or fallout 3, could be very nice.


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## Fatal (Mar 17, 2010)

I finally gave this a try I am pleased with the results


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## Ainvar (Jun 25, 2010)

I do love the Ramdisk. Yes I cam from the Old dos days.  Where you put the whole game on to the ram and play them.  

I found a program that had a 2 week trail.  I made a ramdisk of 4.5ghz and installed lotro flashboost.  Then sent the files to the ramdisk.  What I notice with my setup.  The game ran smoother.    I would like to be able to tweak flashboost not to install the Texture files but the Map files and speed up going from Point a to point b.  Like this Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzXm_4j8E4
Lord of the rings ramdisk.  Point a to Point B Normaly would gake 5 to 15 seconds unless the game is not defraged and it would take longer.


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## hat (Jun 25, 2010)

Would it be worth it to buy a 2GB set of memory so I could make a 2GB ramdisk to use as my pagefile?


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## Ainvar (Jun 25, 2010)

I ask about that on scottmuller forums http://forum.scottmueller.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1359

My Post

Ok I dont know why they have not found a way to do this on a 64bit OS with 8gb or more ram.

Software and Games (Mostly games) tend to have a limited use of 1 to 3gb of ram while running the software due to 32 bit OS limit. Now we been slowly entering the 64 bit age with systems with 6 to 8gb of ram. But software tend to stay in the 32 OS and 3gb limit. I been reading some people have tried disabling page file and Virtual ram Just so they use more ram for software. When I read this It sound right but if you keep reading the same thread and you find they have more issues. So people with large amout of ram dont disable pagefiles or Virtual ram.

Now I understand the games tend to use Pagefiles and Virtual ram as well as up to 3gb of ram. Like Lord of the Rings use it alot 13gb of sofware and best useing on a SSD drive. Now if system has large amout of ram why can we not have a option to use part of our Ram for pagefile and Virtual ram on the ram it self? Would it act faster then a SSD drive.

8gb of ram split into 4gb of ram and 4gb Pagefile and Virtual ram.

Could this be done?


Scott post

Unfortunately most of these questions are predicated on a misunderstanding of how Windows allocates and uses memory. In addition to reading my book Upgrading and Repairing Windows, I recommend you read the following articles, which will help explain how both physical and virtual memory is allocated and used under Windows:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

Bottom line: In nearly all cases, I recommend making *no* manual adjustments in Windows memory use. Windows manages memory properly all by itself, most of the manual changes a user can make will only cause trouble. The only change I do recommend is in XP, where the default virtual memory paging file (pagefile.sys) is fixed at 1.5 times the amount of RAM on the system during *installation*. If you add or remove memory later on, the pagefile size will not automatically change accordingly. On the systems that I install and maintain, I set the Virtual Memory paging file (pagefile.sys) to "System managed size", which allows Windows to change the size dynamically as necessary. Note that is now the default setting in Windows 7/Vista. Scott.


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## WAR10CK (Jun 25, 2010)

thanks man this information was really helpful


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## Completely Bonkers (Jul 26, 2010)

IE, firefox, and other browsers let you change the location of their cache files... perfect for moving to a ramdrive. However, Chrome doesnt have an option to do this.  But I have just found a command line hack! 

For people wanting to move their Chrome cache folder to a ramdrive, here are the instructions (borrowed from a thread at http://www.google.co.uk/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=098d42a41aacdc6d&hl=en).

Instructions:
1./ Right click on your chrome shortcut
2./ Properties
3./ Edit Target, as follows: "C:\Documents and Settings\...\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" *--disk-cache-dir=z:\*

Change the last part, z:\, to your ramdrive if not on Z:


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## Ozpa (Oct 8, 2010)

Is anyone using RAMDisk effectively and with what programs? (apart for browser cache)

I use Opera and I have Disk Cache turned off and Memory Cache on so this is probably the same as having RAMDisk on?

I want to try it but I don't see any practical use for it.


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## Velvet Wafer (Oct 8, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> was doing some system mantinence today and gave this a go made a 1gb ramdisk and made it my pagefile
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/100316/ramdisk.png



any recognizable benefits? or does the system behaves much like before?


----------



## v12dock (Oct 9, 2010)

My computer seems much snappier after redirecting all my Temp files to this, Thanks ALOT!


----------



## GSquadron (Oct 9, 2010)

Wow!
The results are simply great


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## DRDNA (Oct 9, 2010)

Just a thoughtful question here: Would having fraps store to a Ram Drive relieve the dropping of frames and the lagg it creates with in the game its self...I have always thought that the in-game slow downs were from not being able to transfer the data fast enough...We all know how huge a file fraps creates with in just seconds.. Help me with the the calling for enlightenment on this.


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## Solaris17 (Oct 9, 2010)

Velvet Wafer said:


> any recognizable benefits? or does the system behaves much like before?



it is a little faster then before but the most recognizable thing is browsers or loading large programs like photoshop or 3dsmax. things that rely on the pagefile.


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## Velvet Wafer (Oct 9, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> it is a little faster then before but the most recognizable thing is browsers or loading large programs like photoshop or 3dsmax. things that rely on the pagefile.



sounds logical... what happens when you run out of pagefile?


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## OneMoar (Oct 10, 2010)

deleted .. no idea why I said that  ...


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## Solaris17 (Oct 10, 2010)

Velvet Wafer said:


> sounds logical... what happens when you run out of pagefile?



honestly i dont know. I only used it for a short time.


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## HalfAHertz (Oct 10, 2010)

Some people will say it's pointless to allocate RAM for use as page file, because after all it is supposed to be used only when you run out of ram, but there are some programs, which are specifically coded to use the page file prior to the ram running out (like autocad).
So in some limited cases, it does make sense to allocate some of the ram as page file.


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## Mussels (Oct 10, 2010)

OneMoar said:


> idiots ....



would you care to explain your comment, in detail?

your answer is what will determine if you get an infraction or not.


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## Completely Bonkers (Oct 10, 2010)

HalfAHertz said:


> Some people will say it's pointless to allocate RAM for use as page file, because after all it is supposed to be used only when you run out of ram, but there are some programs, which are specifically coded to use the page file prior to the ram running out (like autocad).
> So in some limited cases, it does make sense to allocate some of the ram as page file.


Just to add to HAH's comment: moving a pagefile to RAM will also help save writes to your precious SSD. So IF your pagefile is being used, moving it to RAM will speed it up and save you writes. With modern workstations with 8GB and more memory, you might as well fix the pagefile to 1GB and stick it in a ramdrive. 
Windows is supposed to have a good memory manager and you shouldnt need to play with it. However, may people DO fix their pagefile to a fixed size after a defrag to stop the pagefile from fragmenting. So YES there are reasons to "manage it yourself".


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## OneMoar (Oct 10, 2010)

wow guss I was drunker then I thought I was 
sorry about that  ..


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## Hayder_Master (Nov 4, 2010)

im really impressed with this thread, you got my grateful thanx and 5 star rating


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## AddSub (Apr 10, 2011)

Great thread. I got 24GB of RAM on the way. Going to make some "tweaks" to my primary workstation. I'm having some great results using Dataram's RAMdisk application. Throughput rates are simply ridiculous. I'm getting around 25 to 30 times faster overall performance compared to stuff you can find in retail, SSD-wise. 

RAMdisk setups seem pretty rare. Anyone got info to share on best ways to utilize such setups aside from obvious ways? I plan to run a tweaked and modified version of Windows straight off of it. With some symlink trickery I should be able to utilize such a small amount to a farthest degree.

...
..
.


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## Mussels (Apr 10, 2011)

AddSub said:


> Great thread. I got 24GB of RAM on the way. Going to make some "tweaks" to my primary workstation. I'm having some great results using Dataram's RAMdisk application. Throughput rates are simply ridiculous. I'm getting around 25 to 30 times faster overall performance compared to stuff you can find in retail, SSD-wise.
> 
> RAMdisk setups seem pretty rare. Anyone got info to share on best ways to utilize such setups aside from obvious ways? I plan to run a tweaked and modified version of Windows straight off of it. With some symlink trickery I should be able to utilize such a small amount to a farthest degree.
> 
> ...



i'd like to know how you go with the symbolic links and what trickery you have in mind


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## HalfAHertz (Apr 10, 2011)

AddSub said:


> Great thread. I got 24GB of RAM on the way. Going to make some "tweaks" to my primary workstation. I'm having some great results using Dataram's RAMdisk application. Throughput rates are simply ridiculous. I'm getting around 25 to 30 times faster overall performance compared to stuff you can find in retail, SSD-wise.
> 
> RAMdisk setups seem pretty rare. Anyone got info to share on best ways to utilize such setups aside from obvious ways? I plan to run a tweaked and modified version of Windows straight off of it. With some symlink trickery I should be able to utilize such a small amount to a farthest degree.
> 
> ...


You can't install windows on a ram-drive for a couple of reasons. It's not gonna work with the current programs on market because they load after windows boot and because they can only format your ram as FAT and not NTFS meaning that a logical drive partition can't be sored permanently


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## Velvet Wafer (Apr 10, 2011)

HalfAHertz said:


> You can't install windows on a ram-drive for a couple of reasons. It's not gonna work with the current programs on market because they load after windows boot and because they can only format your ram as FAT and not NTFS meaning that a logical drive partition can't be sored permanently



Romex can do NTFS
But of course, they still wont work due to what you said


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## OneMoar (Apr 10, 2011)

win pe > ram disk > windows
OR get a ssd


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## scaminatrix (Jul 17, 2011)

Completely Bonkers said:


> Just to add to HAH's comment: moving a pagefile to RAM will also help save writes to your precious SSD. So IF your pagefile is being used, moving it to RAM will speed it up and save you writes. With modern workstations with 8GB and more memory, you might as well fix the pagefile to 1GB and stick it in a ramdrive.



There is another good reason to have your pagefile on a RamDISK:
If you're a video editor. Keeping your HDD as empty as possible is a must for a video editor who can't afford/accomodate a decent rig/extra HDD's. If a video editor's HDD performance is low, but RAM usage is also low, performance may be gained through ramdisking your pf to free up the vital space on your HDD.

I know it's an old-ish thread, just wanted to expand on why Ramdisk pagefile's have their uses IMO.


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## Neuromancer (Jul 17, 2011)

Great thread, I have not run a ramdisk in years.


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## Completely Bonkers (Oct 29, 2011)

If you are using the RAMdisk to hold internet temps, then please note something I have just seen with Chrome. When chrome updates, it rewrites its links and shortcuts. It therefore overwrites any command line switches you have set, incl. redirecting temps to the ramdisk. Therefore, after each update, you need to add the command line switch again:

Instructions:
1./ Right click on your chrome shortcut
2./ Properties
3./ Edit Target, as follows: "C:\Documents and Settings\...\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disk-cache-dir=z:\

Change the last part, z:\, to your ramdrive if not on Z:

Repeat. You have to do this again each time chrome updates.


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## t_ski (Sep 16, 2012)

Did anybody ever figure out how to load the whole OS to a ram disk?


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## Mussels (Sep 16, 2012)

t_ski said:


> Did anybody ever figure out how to load the whole OS to a ram disk?



you could run a VMware from a RAMdisk, thats about it. every OS out there needs a reboot after installation, so it wouldnt work for normal use.


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## Velvet Wafer (Sep 16, 2012)

just for your information... Romex Ramdisk was renamed and is now called Primo Ramdisk.
Still the most capable tool regarding ramdisks, in my opinion.


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## catnipkiller (Sep 16, 2012)

Would this work well on 4 gb if i just use 1 gb for ram disk?


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## Velvet Wafer (Sep 16, 2012)

catnipkiller said:


> Would this work well on 4 gb if i just use 1 gb for ram disk?



dependant on what you want to do with it, it might


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## Completely Bonkers (Sep 16, 2012)

catnipkiller said:


> Would this work well on 4 gb if i just use 1 gb for ram disk?



On my 2GB Atom netbook, I have a 256MB RAMdisk to hold temps. Chrome temps are pointed there as are Windows TMP and TEMP. It makes a heck of a difference when browsing the internet or using MS Office.  And I don't need to worry about CCleaner on internet temps... since they get shredded on powerdown


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## xBruce88x (Sep 20, 2012)

I use a ramdisk for Sim City 4 on my main rig. It solves a lot of performance issues due to the way the game is constantly loading from the hard drive. I use this program, the free version lets you make up to a 4GB ramdisk.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk


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## n-ster (Sep 20, 2012)

I found the, IIRC the name is Qsoft to be the fastest


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## lemonadesoda (Nov 23, 2012)

There's another ramdisk contender on the block. I've been using it and quite impressed with the results. Compatible with Windows XP, 2003, 2008, Vista, 7 and 8.  Works in both 32 and 64 bit editions of Windows. Now the two major pluses: It's fast, and it's FREE. 

http://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/


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## n-ster (Nov 23, 2012)

lemonadesoda said:


> There's another ramdisk contender on the block. I've been using it and quite impressed with the results. Compatible with Windows XP, 2003, 2008, Vista, 7 and 8.  Works in both 32 and 64 bit editions of Windows. Now the two major pluses: It's fast, and it's FREE.
> 
> http://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/



hmmm I'll probably try to compare Qsoft to this to see, thanks

so far though Qsoft has always been the fastest for me


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## voidberg (Nov 9, 2013)

hey got a random idea and read about this today at school and came home and tested it tried it out a little and im satisfied with it thank you very much also found if you install java onto it it make java games run amazingly


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## Arjai (Nov 9, 2013)

Just browsing through, didn't see anything about SuperCache.

http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/supercache.php

I used it to Crunch CEP2, a major disc thrasher. Works great because it is dynamic with it's saves to HDD or SSD. see my posts about it...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=190280

My trials with a ramdisk and SuperCache are there.

Just my 2 cents.


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