Installing a ramdisc

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pieter Tieghem
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Pieter Tieghem

Hi all

With Tweak-XP you can install a ramdisc.
(A ramdisc represents a pseudo-drive, based on memory rather than a
physical disk drive of some type.)

But this feature doesn't work for my computer. Does someone know a
good other program that can do this?

And is a ramdisc really helpful for increasing the speed, if you move
for example the internet cache folder and windows temp folder on it?

Thanks in advance!
Pieter
 
Pieter Tieghem said:
Hi all

With Tweak-XP you can install a ramdisc.
(A ramdisc represents a pseudo-drive, based on memory rather than a
physical disk drive of some type.)

But this feature doesn't work for my computer. Does someone know a
good other program that can do this?

And is a ramdisc really helpful for increasing the speed, if you move
for example the internet cache folder and windows temp folder on it?
Click to expand...

If you have more than a Gig of memory, I could see this being helpful.

When you create a RamDisk, you are using up memory that could be used by the
running programs and might cause Windows to do the hard drive swapping a lot
more. This would really slow things down, even if the swap drive was on a
RamDisk.
 
Here's some you could try.
http://www.ramdisk.tk/
http://www.ppsoft.dk/Ramdisk_Eng.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q257405

The only real virtue of one is that the files you
put on it go away at reboot time.
Click to expand...

I don't know about WindowsXP, but I would think that in O/S designs these
days (post PC DOS and Windows-3.x) there is not much need/use for a
ramdisk, in the traditional (DOS) sense. I do know that the various *nix
(Solaris, Linux) designs use disk block buffers in a (fairly large?)
memory pool anyway. The advantage is speed: recent and often used disk
blocks are cached in that memory. In addition, the changed blocks are
(slowly? steadily!) written out to disk, where they will survive power
off/on (while ramdisk "evaporates"!). BTW, that's why you should not yank
power on modern O/S, because stuff "on the way to disk" has to be flushed
out of RAM, before you remove power (by O/S control). I think modern O/S
kernels might also adjust the size of the memory cache? Not sure.

BTW, there is/was another form of RAM disk, which I first saw advertised
about 10 years ago? This was a HD emulation using massive amounts
of battery backed RAM. It was in a separate case, like a "real" HD, and
interfaced to the system through SCSI, also like a "real" HD. The price
was much more than a "real" HD! The advantage was speed: no rotational
seek latency! no physical disk head slewing latency! This reduced disk
latencies to the order of usec instead of msec, potentially 1000 fold
improvement (for widely scattered small writes). I think it was targeting
database systems, for use as a transaction log disk (for backout and
persistence of database changes "in progress"). I haven't seen any (but
haven't searched) recently. I suspect that cheap RAM and better O/S design
has overshadowed those kinds of RAM disks also. Today you don't have the
battery backup, so you're more vulnerable to crash, but UPS are cheap.
 
I don't know about WindowsXP, but I would think that in O/S designs these
days (post PC DOS and Windows-3.x) there is not much need/use for a
ramdisk, in the traditional (DOS) sense.
Click to expand...

On a fast broadband internet connection, there is signficant benefit to a
Ramdisk for temporary internet files. Temp folder isn't so signficant
except in isolated uses per application. Although a modern OS will cache
files, they're still being written to the HDDs unless the ramdisk is used.

I don't mean the old DOS ramdisk though, rather a more modern ramdisk with
dynamic memory use (grows and shrinks as needed) and far larger
capacity... the last thing you want is a 32MB ramdisk for caching IE when
you're trying to download a 700MB ISO... though of course in that
situation you need a Gig of memory or more to even consider a ramdisk that
big... but even so a 50-256MB ramdisk is a pretty useful size for more
common surfing.
 
On a fast broadband internet connection, there is signficant benefit to a
Ramdisk for temporary internet files. Temp folder isn't so signficant
except in isolated uses per application. Although a modern OS will cache
files, they're still being written to the HDDs unless the ramdisk is used.
Click to expand...

Yeah, so? Your disk bandwidth is many times your network bandwidth, so I
don't think the disk I/O is holding anything up. Besides, I usually find
that I download a bunch of stuff (getting jaded with this cable modem?)
and it might be a while before I get to look at it. I intentionally have
a directory on HD (actually NFS) for downloaded "unprocessed" stuff.
I don't mean the old DOS ramdisk though, rather a more modern ramdisk
with dynamic memory use (grows and shrinks as needed) and far larger
capacity... the last thing you want is a 32MB ramdisk for caching IE
when you're trying to download a 700MB ISO... though of course in that
situation you need a Gig of memory or more to even consider a ramdisk
that big... but even so a 50-256MB ramdisk is a pretty useful size for
more common surfing.
Click to expand...

OK, I guess that might be useful for someone?

BTW, I might also be a bit spoiled by using Solaris on Sparc for some of
my work. Solaris does something pretty neat. It maps /tmp disk directly
onto the swap space, which consists of physical memory + swap
partition(s). Hence, you get the advantage of a dynamic /tmp in memory "as
a freebie". When memory gets full, it swaps it out. Of course, as you
point out, if you try to write anything too big to fit into /tmp, it will
fail. Another reason I tend to use real (networked) disk for downloads.
 
Yeah, so? Your disk bandwidth is many times your network bandwidth, so I
don't think the disk I/O is holding anything up.
Click to expand...

Not thinking it and trying it are two different things. I have tried
both.


Besides, I usually find
that I download a bunch of stuff (getting jaded with this cable modem?)
and it might be a while before I get to look at it. I intentionally have
a directory on HD (actually NFS) for downloaded "unprocessed" stuff.
Click to expand...

If it works good for you, that's great. If you have a fast broadband
connection though, there is no need to download for later viewing, a
shortcut to the page or file, etc, should suffice unless you fear it will
disappear before you were to get back to it.

OK, I guess that might be useful for someone?
Click to expand...

It can be, as can a lot of other tweaks... just a matter of how many
tweaks and which are most time-effective to implement, per each person's
use of their system.
BTW, I might also be a bit spoiled by using Solaris on Sparc for some of
my work. Solaris does something pretty neat. It maps /tmp disk directly
onto the swap space, which consists of physical memory + swap
partition(s). Hence, you get the advantage of a dynamic /tmp in memory "as
a freebie". When memory gets full, it swaps it out. Of course, as you
point out, if you try to write anything too big to fit into /tmp, it will
fail. Another reason I tend to use real (networked) disk for downloads.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of download managers for windows, if I were downloading
anything to large to fit on a typically-sized ramdrive I wouldn't have the
browser handling that anyway. It would be handy though if windows handled
it a bit more like Solaris, it seems the windows swapfile has always been
a kludged afterthought.
 
I don't mean the old DOS ramdisk though, rather a more modern ramdisk
It sounds like you could use tmpfs. For more info see:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs3.html

BTW, I might also be a bit spoiled by using Solaris on Sparc for some of
my work. Solaris does something pretty neat. It maps /tmp disk directly
onto the swap space, which consists of physical memory + swap
partition(s). Hence, you get the advantage of a dynamic /tmp in memory "as
a freebie". When memory gets full, it swaps it out. Of course, as you
point out, if you try to write anything too big to fit into /tmp, it will
fail.
Click to expand...

GNU/Linux has tmpfs too... Use a large swap partition, and make /tmp
volatile by adding this line to fstab:
tmp /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
 
It sounds like you could use tmpfs. For more info see:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs3.html
Click to expand...

Ah! That's a good reference. I poked around in man pages and howtos on
SuSE 8.2 and I could not find any good on-line documentation on tmpfs.
Even a pointer to this web site would have been good (but hard to find?).

GNU/Linux has tmpfs too... Use a large swap partition, and make /tmp
volatile by adding this line to fstab:
tmp /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
Click to expand...

I didn't know that. (Linux) "old timer" I guess? Thanks for the info!
 
Hi all

Thanks for your help. It seems that a ramdisc isn't that necessary for
me, and all programs I tried don't work. I think because my system is
only NTFS.

Thanks anyway!
Pieter
 
Hi all

Thanks for your help. It seems that a ramdisc isn't that necessary for
me, and all programs I tried don't work. I think because my system is
only NTFS.

Thanks anyway!
Pieter
Click to expand...

The file system your hard drives use have nothing to do with it, more
likely you tried programs for DOS or Win9x instead of NT. Try Google
searching for Win2K or WinXp ramdisks.
 
kony said:
The file system your hard drives use have nothing to do with it, more
likely you tried programs for DOS or Win9x instead of NT. Try Google
searching for Win2K or WinXp ramdisks.
Click to expand...

Been out of circulation for a while and didn't see this thread
earlier. As a former regular user of Amiga computers, one thing I
sorely miss is the Ram Disk which comes built-in with the OS, and I've
been meaning to ask if there's a similar utility for MS Windows. I
don't know how useful it will be in a PC, but for the Amiga at least,
it's great for fast temporary storage, even for trial installation of
software. I used it all the time.

This is no silly Amiga advocacy stuff, but the Amiga OS and most Amiga
software need so little memory that once you have a few MBs of RAM,
the dynamic Ram Disk can be put to real practical use - without ever
having to use a swap file.

So, essentially repeating the OP's question, has anyone found a
useable Ram Disk utility for Windows ?
 
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