Using a RAM disk as a swap drive is just silly. The swap drive is
part of implementing virtual memory -- a disk area the system can store
things in that need to look, to programs, like they're in RAM, but which
there isn't enough physical RAM to hold. You'd be better off letting
Windows manage that RAM as needed.
I remember a cartoon from Windows 95/98 days that featured a user
exclaiming "Virtual memory! Now I can make a really BIG RAMdisk!",
which is silliness in the other direction, using space that looks like
me,ory but is stored on disk as necessary, to look like it's always on
disk.
The heyday of RAMdisks was probably the era of EMS memory, which was a
way to increase the RAM in a PC, but only applications that knew how to
talk to EMS could use it. So a RAMdisk utility that could talk to EMS
could provide benefit to applications that didn't know how to use it.
We're in a somewhat similar situation at the moment, where some
motherboards provide more RAM than 32-bit applications can use -- a
RAMdisk implementation that uses 64-bit mode to access that memory can
provide some benefit to applications that just think it's a really fast
drive. Like EMS, this is almost certainly just a temporary quirk of
different parts of technology evolving in parallel but not in step.
David Gillett
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Any RamDisk users?
From: Peter Shkabara <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, April 26, 2013 7:51 am
To: [log in to unmask]
I have used RAM disk in the past primarily for a "scratch" drive. It is
fast
and is erased when you shut down. However, newer versions of Windows (XP
and
later) use available RAM efficiently and putting the swap drive on a RAM
Disk would be counterproductive. I don't have any measurements that made
myself, but am relaying info I have gathered from articles I read. My
own
experience does seem to support that view.
I agree with Peter Ekkerman's comment that free RAM Disks are available
that
work well. I have not used a RAM Disk for some time now since I have an
SSD
as my boot drive. An SSD is not as fast as a RAM disk, but much faster
than
a standard hard drive.
Good luck.
Peter Shkabara
--------------------------
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip Williams [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 9:26 PM
Subject: Any RamDisk users?
Greetings,
Although this is a software subject, it has a direct relativity to
hardware
so I've posted it where I thought more builders would read.
Have any of you had any experience with RamDisk? I found it through an
old
2004 forum post and found the site is still up.
http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php
Apparently it sets up the extra ram not recognized by windows as a
virtual
disk that appears to the OS as a hard drive and the user in the forum
claims
to have assigned the swap files to ram increasing performance (if I
understood correctly).
The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
support at our website:
http://freepctech.com
The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
support at our website:
http://freepctech.com
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