RAM Disk?

[Heihachi]

Do you guys know what a RAM Disk is?

Can you do it w/ Windows XP Pro?

What is a RAM Disk?

How does it work?

(it's amazing how little I know)

What's the benefits of using a RAM disk?

Thanks

[i6s1]

Its an Apple thing. I don't know if it can be done in XP. The way it works, say you've got a tonne of RAM. (Say 1 gig) You can use a section of that RAM just as you would a hard drive. (Say 512megs)Meaning you can install a program there. Just imagine how fast it would launch! The downside is, of course, then you don't have as much RAM for the OS. (512mges) This means that if the OS is short of RAM, it uses virtual memory, which completely negates the point of RAM disk.

For more info then that, you'd better talk to someone who's done it. (Or knows what they're talking about)

Now that I think about it, it is done sometimes on Win machines. If you boot with a Win 95/98/ME boot floppy, it creates a RAM disk (D\:) and loads some tools there. Thats why your CD and extra HDs move one letter up.

[DoPeY5007]

sine say Win98 has a limit of 256meg, and we have 1gig installed can we "RAM Disk" the remaining part of the RAM?

[Tommy Boomfiger]

ive done it on win2k to about 256mb. i could never get it higher, but ive seen it done higher and i know someone who installed quake 3 and it ran sooooooooooooo fast.

[Heihachi]

How do you do it?

[hapoo]

ram disk is not apple exclusive, i've used it on many other machines!

winxp DOES have very limited ram disk abilities (something like 22 megabytes max). In order to get more out of it you have to use third party software.


heres a guide:
http://www.xp-erience.org/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=134

[DoPeY5007]

what about 98?

[Heihachi]

Thanks... that was VERY informative.

What stuff do you guys use for your RAM Disk?

So in theory... if I install a game in my RAM Disk (considering there's enough space) it should run BLAZING fast on load up time huh?

[hapoo]

yes but as soon as you turn off your computer the programs gone

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by Heihachi
What stuff do you guys use for your RAM Disk?


I've heard of people using it for a Temp Folder and Temp Internet files...

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by DoPeY5007
what about 98? use 3rd party software. in my experiences you can use 512mb of ram and 511mb of ramdisk. for some reason on my current system i cant get win98se to run at all with 1gig of ram no matter what i do :confused:



Originally posted by Heihachi
So in theory... if I install a game in my RAM Disk (considering there's enough space) it should run BLAZING fast on load up time huh? oh hell yeah :D



Originally posted by hapoo
yes but as soon as you turn off your computer the programs gone some 3rd party software will backup the data to the hd during shutdown, and restore it to the ramdisk when you boot up.

[Heihachi]

Originally posted by Tommy Boomfiger
some 3rd party software will backup the data to the hd during shutdown, and restore it to the ramdisk when you boot up.

I believe RAM Disk Pro does that...

[Heihachi]

So I got my RAM Disk PRO up... how big do you guys use your size? I set mine to 30MB...

Is that too much/little?

I have 256MB total

[qmanchu]

It really depends on how you plan to use it. If you're only going to use it for either your TEMP folder or your browser cache, 30MB should be plenty. However, if you're going to use it as both, you'll probably want to bump it up. If you plan to execute a program from it, obviously, it will depend on the size of program.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

IMO, 256 mb is the minimum you should have in an XP box. the amount you allocate to ramdisk depends what you need to do.

[Heihachi]

I guess I haven't really found out what to use the RAM disk for in practical scenarios... You guys got any?

I've only been using it for my temp i-net folders... like from the link above.. but that's just about it.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by Heihachi
I guess I haven't really found out what to use the RAM disk for in practical scenarios... You guys got any?

I've only been using it for my temp i-net folders... like from the link above.. but that's just about it. like i said before, i know someone who installed quake 3 on it and it loaded up super fast, so games would be one thing. anything else that is harddrive intensive would be a good idea. you could use it for a photoshop swap disk or a small swap file? i dont know how effective a temp inet folder would be since those files tend to be pretty small as it is, though i have heard of people useing it for that as well

[bachviet]

Originally posted by hapoo
ram disk is not apple exclusive, i've used it on many other machines!

winxp DOES have very limited ram disk abilities (something like 22 megabytes max). In order to get more out of it you have to use third party software.


heres a guide:
http://www.xp-erience.org/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=134
The link doesn't work. Anybody has another link that works? Thank you. :D

[irwin]

I gotta try this thing out when i get home. :D