Another 8GB worth it for a RAM disk?

Sunbed

Sunbed

Sunbed

Soldato
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It's so cheap!!!

I want to make a RAM disk for CAD files and to store my pagefile/temp files on.

Is it worth getting another 8GB for this? Like I said, it's so cheap!!!!11

I have 8GB of 1600 HyperX already and I have a 120GB Vertex 2E SSD if that makes any difference.

Anyone made a RAM disk before?
 
Trofeo said:
I've wanted to give this a try for some time :D not sure there would be any point having the page file on it though, just disable the page file and make a smaller RAM disk so there's more RAM available to the operating system, that said though I'm not sure if there might be some unforeseen consequences of disabling it even if you have plenty of RAM, maybe someone that knows more could comment on that :p
Click to expand...

Yeh I think you're right. It's probably best to keep the page file enabled on C:. That used to always be recommended anyway.

Advantages I can think of so far:

  • Use it for editing large CAD files or Photoshop (I don't use PS though).
  • Running an untraceable virtual machine :ninja:
  • Put temp files and browser caches on it for speed and to reduce SSD wear.
  • Move map files from your favorite games to it and make a junction in your steam folder or whatever - quicker loading times?

Would like feedback if anyone has any experience of this. Honestly it's probably not worth it most of the time but I want an excuse for a little project and 16GB of RAM is so tempting :p
 
Thanks for that ^, that's pretty much what I discovered last night. I had a go with the free version of some RAM disk software - probably what you use.

I put the two biggest folders from my L4D2 folder into the RAM drive and made a symbolic link to the Steamapps folder. The folders were "maps" (like you said, not that big actually) and "sound" (2.99GB!). This pushed it to just under 4GB in total.

I timed loading the game, loading the first map, and the second. It shaved about a second off the boot into the game, and about two seconds (approx 13 secs down from 15 ish) for each map. That sounds promising but like you said, the boot times and shutdown times are MUCH longer. It seems to make an image of the entire 4GB of space, even if you don't have anything in the drive.

So, you might see some benefit if you made an 8GB RAM drive and stuck the entire game in there, but boot times and shutdown times would be even longer in that case. Therefore I'll probably forget the idea, SSD is fast enough :)

16GB will probably be pointless. I'll kick myself if it goes up drastically in price though.
 
From the amount of time it took, I'm guessing it writes the ENTIRE image each time? It seemed to be no different whether writing an image with a 1kb text file or 4GB of data.

It would be better if it just read/wrote the changes.
 
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