AMD's Radeon-branded RAMDisk software now available for download

[Shawn Knight]

AMD seems to believe that consumers are taking advantage of record-low memory prices and would like to help them put that RAM to good use. The semiconductor company has partnered with Dataram to create a branded RAMDisk software that can allocate chunks of system memory to be used as temporary storage.

A free trial of what AMD is calling Radeon RAMDisk is available for anyone to try out. With the free version, users can allocate up to 4GB of system memory into what Windows believes is usable storage. Those running Radeon-branded modules can increase the limit up to 6GB.

If that isn’t enough, there’s the option to purchase Radeon RAMDisk Xtreme for just $19. The full version allows users to create a RAM disk up to 64GB in size regardless of module brand.

The main reason to use a RAM disk is speed. Users can access it at maximum bandwidth at any time without fear of mechanical failure, fragmentation, overheating, noise or vibrations – concerns that are present with a traditional hard drive.

RAM disks are useful in a number of different scenarios. Users can allocate RAM as cache for web browsers to speed up surfing, decrease CD duplication times or help load games more quickly. The software is additionally useful when creating a Photoshop scratch disk or when editing audio and video files.

Just remember that RAM is volatile and requires a steady supply of power to store data. A loss of power or a simple reboot will erase the RAM disk contents unless you enable the automatic imaging system built into the Radeon RAMDisk software. Download here.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/50461-amds-radeon-branded-ramdisk-software-now-available-for-download.html

 

[Guest]

RamDisk it's useless once you use smart software as it will ocuppy as much ram as needed, no need to have a middle piece of extra software in between

 

[Ma_ga]

It's seem that AMD bought the software and re-skin it. I have been using (the dararam one) for some time now and it's pretty good, I hope AMD don't turn into a big pile of crap.

 

[Guest]

I used to use a RAM disk with DOS 3.3 as it really helped performance back then however these days it's not really an issue.

 

[Vrmithrax]

Interesting coincidence... I was just telling a friend about how I was able to utilize a recoverable RAM drive on my Amiga over 20 years ago, to clone my OS into that on a cold start, and then get lightning reboots and system speeds. This is close, but still not quite what I was wishing I could do with Windows today...

 

[howzz1854]

I don't think this is news. Ramdisk has been around for a long time. what makes AMD's ramdisk any different?

 

[Vrmithrax]

I don't think this is news. Ramdisk has been around for a long time. what makes AMD's ramdisk any different?

I think it's just more of a mainstreaming attempt and product marketing announcement. Ramdisks have been around, but aren't commonplace by any means. Looks like AMD would like to bring them into the light, then make some money selling the tech to consumers.

 

[howzz1854]

If memory serves me correctly, I believe Ramdisk made more of a performance difference back in XP/Vista days rather than 7. can anyone confirm this?

 

[psycros]

RAMdisk isn't much use if you have an SSD - yes, system memory is faster but not <b>that</b> much faster. On a 64-bit OS its also kind of pointless since you can use tons of RAM. However, I could see one very good use for it, and that would be allowing a 32-bit OS to utilize more than 3.25gb of RAM. That would require the RAMdisk to load at a very low level, probably before the kernal, which I doubt this one does. Why would anyone do this? Compatibility is one reason: lots of drivers for older hardware simply don't exist for 64-bit Windows. A lot of good programs (mostly older versions) don't run well on it either. Lately I've really been wanting to go back to 32-bit because its seems like games were just far less buggy that way. I have both Windows 7 32 and 64-bit running on very similar machines and everything works perfect on the 32-bit build. The 64-bit Seven has bugs in literally every game you run that you never see on 32-bit. I'm not just talking about stuff from years ago, either - Torchlight II and some other recent titles exhibit this kind of weirdness on 64-bit Windows. Vista 64 had fewer issues of this kind so the problem is probably going to get worse with each new release of Windows. Sure, VMware and Virtualbox can sometimes do the job but it just feels ridiculous running Windows <I>within</I> Windows. I'd rather stick with XP than go that route..or maybe Linux, just for the heck of it.

 

[red1776]

RAMdisk isn't much use if you have an SSD - yes, system memory is faster but not <b>that</b> much faster.

I beg to differ. I have been using this and it crushes an ssd in speed


I can, I have been using this and it makes a SSD look like a FDD. I am getting the same results as here.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Storage/AMD-Launches-Radeon-RAMDisk-Free-6GB-Disks-AMD-Memory#comments

 

[spydercanopus]

RamDisk it's useless once you use smart software as it will ocuppy as much ram as needed, no need to have a middle piece of extra software in between

Not useless for game servers needing fastest possible latency. Ramdisk is ideal for Minecraft, but terrible for crashes or power outages without backing it up regularly. But the bottlenect will not be the server.

 

[Per Hansson]

Running Windows from a RAMDISK is a pretty amazing experience.
I have a BartPE USB stick that loads an ISO of Windows into RAM.
Takes a long time to load the ISO from the USB > RAM but once it's done you can remove the USB stick and the thing just flies!

It's unlike anything I have ever used before, it's leaps and bounds faster than any SSD drive...

 

[vinit22]

Whats the use of this AMD ram disk software , it is compatible to other ram ? I am having corsair vengeance series I am having 2 ram sticks of 4 GB each with a frequency of 1600mhz .

 

[red1776]

Whats the use of this AMD ram disk software , it is compatible to other ram ? I am having corsair vengeance series I am having 2 ram sticks of 4 GB each with a frequency of 1600mhz .

It is compatible with any RAM. You just get to set up to 6GB drive with AMD RAM and the free version, 4GB with non AMD RAM. the paid version you can set up to 64GB disk wiith any brand

 

[Ma_ga]

It's nice to see people dismiss so easely because it was used in old MSDOS days, but in todays use you can put the Internet temp files on a ramdisk (or the whole browser), or you can copy Torchlight II and see how drastically loadtimes are reduced (and for that matter, almost any game if you have enought ram), you can also use it as a scrach disk for PS, Premier and other heavy programs (with the risk it involves).

 

[foreverzero89]

How do you put the whole browser on RAMdisk? I have opera.

 

[spydercanopus]

How do you put the whole browser on RAMdisk? I have opera.

Ramdisk creates a partition in the RAM, so just install the browser to that or configure the cache to be stored in the drive letter.

 

[foreverzero89]

Is it possible to move my current install to the ramdisk?

 

[spydercanopus]

Is it possible to move my current install to the ramdisk?

Yea but you'll have to reinstall every time your PC restarts.

 

[SSA-Ed]

Ever re-code or trans-code videos? Put the videos on a ramdisk and you won't believe your eyes. DDR3-1600 (pc12800) is on the order of 25 times faster than the best SSDs (500+MB/s). Are you a SW developer? Do your work in a ramdisk and complicated compiles that took minutes yesterday now take only a second or two. If you have HDs instead of SSDs, ramdisks are 100 times as fast. Re-indexing large data base files? What took an hour yesterday may be done in 4 or 5 seconds today (and no wear and tear on those spinning drives).

 

[Darth Shiv]

RamDisk it's useless once you use smart software as it will ocuppy as much ram as needed, no need to have a middle piece of extra software in between

It's a handy tool to work out if your application is IO bottlenecked.