How do you make a Ram Drive?

[SuperCheetah]

Anyone know how to make a Ram Drive???

Do any of you guys know how or where I can find an article on how to make a ram drive? I found one on TechTV's website, but its not very in depth. Right now I have 512 Crucial memory, but I want to upgrade to over a gig, so I can create a ram drive. I've heard a ram drive has major advantages and disadvantages.

For one, it loads programs extremely fast, but on shutdown you lose everything in ram of course. I don't quite understand how it works that programs load faster, I guess it's after you open them or something.

If anyone can explain Ram Drives to me and how to make one I would be very grateful!

Thanks

 

[uncleel]

You can try this-->
http://www.speedcorp.net/guides/ramdrive/
http://www.superspeed.com/ramdisk.html

You have to tell the swap file that it will be using the new RAM drive rather than just "Let windows" manage the swap file.
Start/Settings/Control Panel/System/Perfomance/Virtual Memory/Select your RAM drive as the swap drive.. I believe that anything over 16 megs will most likely be unstable. When windows hits it's limitation on memory size, usually about 128MB or RAM, you could have it cache to the RAMDRIVE instead of the hard drive, much faster I/O.

 

[SuperCheetah]

Thanks again Uncleel! Man, you respond so quickly to my posts! Do you think it would be ok if I attempted to make a Ram Drive with just 512 in my system or should I wait until I upgrade?

 

[svtcobra]

I think that 512mb is minimum for a ramdrive. you should try it.

 

[SuperCheetah]

I think I might next week, because it spring break so I'll have lots of time on my hands. If I do I'll post telling my thoughts about it pros and cons, etc.

 

[svtcobra]

I didnt see much of an improvement when i tried it..but that was on my old PIII 800 with 384 ram.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by svtcobra
I think that 512mb is minimum for a ramdrive.

???
1/2 gigabytes minimum??

 

[Didou]

What does it actually do ?

I've heard a lot about it but haven't tryed it so far.

Does it act like a HDD partition but faster ?

Or is it just a way to get the OS to reside more in memory ?

 

[SNGX1275]

Originally posted by Didou
What does it actually do ?
I've heard a lot about it but haven't tryed it so far.
Does it act like a HDD partition but faster ?
Or is it just a way to get the OS to reside more in memory ?

It just takes a portion your physical RAM and makes it a drive. From there you can place stuff in it for faster access than hard disk. This feature was cool when I used macs back in the day and had some small games, I'd make a 2 meg RAM disk and drop the games in there and run, much faster load times. Don't know if you can really do that with windows applications though because they write stuff all over your hard disk rather than just 1 program that doesn't have 48 .dlls in the directory with it that are also needed to make the thing run.

 

[SuperCheetah]

I've always heard that ram drives are used mainly to load programs and games extremely fast. I'm with SNG about the whole running windows programs on ram drives though, I'm not too sure how that would work. I believe I'm going to give ram drives a try come next week and see the effects of it. If and when I do I'll post my results and opinion of it. Maybe I'll start out with a 256MB ram drive. Any suggestions about other recommended sizes???

 

[svtcobra]

Originally posted by Mictlantecuhtli

???
1/2 gigabytes minimum??

What I meant was that if you have a total of 512mb in your system you can take half of that and create the ram drive and still have enough ram in the computer for everything else.

If you only have 256mb then you would only be able to create a 128mb ram drive(kinda small) and only have 128mb for the computer apps(usually not enough).

This is my own opinion. It really depends on what the ram drive is going to be used for.

 

[svtcobra]

Originally posted by SuperCheetah
Maybe I'll start out with a 256MB ram drive. Any suggestions about other recommended sizes???

256 should be plenty to start off with.

 

[Vehementi]

Any ideas on how a hard drive partition (like 3-5 GB) all dedicated to virtual memory would perform?

 

[Ai Hate]

Originally posted by Vehementi
Any ideas on how a hard drive partition (like 3-5 GB) all dedicated to virtual memory would perform?

all i know is that it should perform better than when assigned to some space on a busy drive.

 

[Ph30nIX]

all i know is that it should perform better than when assigned to some space on a busy drive.

Seriously doubt it. A 3-5gb hdd would have a slower interface and rpm than most newer drives, hence much slower. Chance are making the swap file on the normal hdd that is twice the size of the ram (which is recommended) would give better performance.

 

[DLambie]

CAUTION using RAM drives

RAM Drives - I used lots back in the good ol' days of DOS but never with Windows. RAM drives are much much faster.

WARNING and CAUTION: correct me if I am wrong but RAM drives erase the data/files on them when comptuter is turned off.

Question I have is: Windows SE and beyond what good is a RAM drive anyway?

Only reason for useing RAM drive I would think would be:
1) unless working on a extremely big excel files (yes saving time is instant. however if computer crashes - bye bye file)

2) for coping files as in burning multiple copies of a music/data CD/DVD one would create a image of the CD/DVD you wanting to burn onto a RAM drive first then use that image to burn onto blank CD/DVD (really only good if making multiple copies.

 

[jackforbes]

A memory upgrade is simple enough to do yourself - there are plenty of tutorials online to show you how - or your local computer store will be happy to help you for a small fee.The whole operation should be over quickly - it will probably take you longer to unscrew the screws on the case than it will to upgrade the RAM.The fact is that CleanMemory can reduce your RAM utilized by up to 60% automatically!

 

[anand1]

It has always been adviced to keep the swap file size or the Virtual memory size to 1.5 to 2.5 times of ur RAM size for optimal usage.