12GB RAM - Can I use a virtual ramdisk as the page file?

hernaldo · 27 Mar 2009 at 21:53

Hi there, as title really. I'm wandering what to do to make use of this 12GB memory in me computer lol. Is it worth setting a software ramdisk and using that as the page file...

I have SSD drives so this would help their long term use there I would expect also.

Or is this not a good idea?

Thanks,

FaceplantSi · 28 Mar 2009 at 08:52

There's a good article here about Ramdrives with OCZ SSD's.

edgedemon · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:06

Am I missing something? Why have a RAMdisk? What is the advantage to this over just turning off all page files and letting windows use the RAM as it page file?

smogsy · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:19

edge you need a pagefile for some apps to run.

geekyEd · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:29

lol not with 12gb of ram well nothing of any measured size

hawker1986 · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:36

Ive got 8gb of RAM and just turned my pagefile off, nothing has stopped working on my PC. Just turn the thing off and youll be fine, worst comes to worst you can stick it back on again :S.

Hawker

=VTA=MANFACE · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:48

Pagefile is used when you run out of memory and it uses the hard drive, am I right ?

I have 8 GB of Ram Vista 64, I could turn it off ?

Trifid · 28 Mar 2009 at 09:52

=VTA=MANFACE said:
Pagefile is used when you run out of memory and it uses the hard drive, am I right ?

I have 8 GB of Ram Vista 64, I could turn it off ?

BluZiff said:
lol not with 12gb of ram well nothing of any measured size

Some applications need a page file to be there to load. It has nothing to do with the fact that it needs more memory than you have installed.

matt100 · 28 Mar 2009 at 10:16

is there a significant benefit to doing this?

hernaldo · 28 Mar 2009 at 11:39

matt100 said:
is there a significant benefit to doing this?

That's the idea of the thread

I'm well aware that you shouldn't need a page file with 12GB of RAM, but like already said some programs insist on having one.

matt100 · 28 Mar 2009 at 11:41

fair enough lol... seemed to be a discussion over whether it was wise not whether it would give you a perceivable performance boost thats all.

I have 2 SSDs in RAID 0 and enought RAM to do this but I moved my page file into its own partition on my last build which was supposed to help and it made sod all difference.

hernaldo · 28 Mar 2009 at 11:49

matt100 said:
fair enough lol... seemed to be a discussion over whether it was wise not whether it would give you a perceivable performance boost thats all.

I have 2 SSDs in RAID 0 and enought RAM to do this but I moved my page file into its own partition on my last build which was supposed to help and it made sod all difference.

lol hopefully someone will post who knows a thing or two...it's a big mystery to me as like you said these things have a habit of sounding good but not really doing much.

JonJ678 · 28 Mar 2009 at 16:02

For page file issues, you'll want to read http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17987573

I remember it because it convinced me to go back to using a page file from having none.

For 12gb of ram, playing with ramdisks is a good shout. The paging file on one is not a good call, but if you wish to then go ahead. A better use tends to be installing a game to it (remember to copy the data off the drive before you reboot), or putting anything you want to work really fast onto it.

With effort, you can run an entire operating system from one. If you wish to test the potential of that, put a copy of XP in virtualbox onto a 4gb ramdisk and see how fast it runs.

Alternatively, on a similar note to above, 12gb of ram means several operating systems all at once, which is fantastic

Lanz · 29 Mar 2009 at 11:11

I would turn off the pagefile, but still create a ramdisk for all the garbage that gets written.

ie. Temp Internet files, search index, c:\windows\temp, live TV buffer (if you're using media center)

drak3 · 30 Mar 2009 at 19:24

I run all my "junk" and have caches, temps and portable versions of firefox etc on ramdisk.

Everything loads instantly.

Frank_Rizzo · 30 Mar 2009 at 20:46

A pagefile is supposed to be utilised when your PC runs out of ram. Using ram for a pagefile seems a bit of a waste.

If you have enough ram the pagefile should not be used. Some have already said though that some apps need it. And when you say you moved it from one disk to raid or whatever the reason you didn't see a change in performance is because the pagefile was never in use!

Stick with a basic ramdrive and shove all your temp stuff on it.

In system properties, advanced, environment variables change the user variables

TEMP=Z:\
TMP=Z:\

in System variables:

TEMP=Z:\
TMP=Z:\

Where Z: is your ramdrive drive letter. To be neater you could create a directory Z:\Temp but you will have to recreate that path on every boot so a startup batch file will be needed.

Next change your browse temp \ cache directory to the Z: drive (side note: Especially IE the temp dir size should be minimum as possible. This was for the day of dial up where stuff had to be cached and large temp dirs are more of a hinderance).

If you use any apps which need custom temp dirs (burning software) then point the temp drive to the ramdrive too but beware that you have enough space there.

I have used a lot of ramdrives over the years - since way back in the 80's on DOS. For XP / Vista one of the best free ones is the Gavotte rramdisk.sys based on microsofts original ramdisk.sys.

This version can create ramdrives upto 3gb and in some cases they can be created / changed on the fly. Also never had any stability issues with this one and you don't have to mess with the boot.ini file like you had to with older versions of Cenatek. Works on XP or Vista 32. Haven't tried 64.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/