RAM DISK

mkohman

mkohman

mkohman

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Joined
1 Sep 2009
Posts
197
Hey All,

I have a question about Ram Disks.. I have 12 GB DDR 3 Corsair Ram overclocked and running at 1600 mhz..

Now I have a 128gb Crucial M4 SSD for windows 7 and apps and I have another 40GB Kingston V series SSD which I am currently only using as a cache disk for temp and tmp windows files and scratch disk for adobe premier pro and photoshop..

The question is this, will I be better of creating a Ram Disk instead of using the 40GB ssd? Will the Ram Disk be faster? How mush Ram should I use to create the Ram Disk? Also if you think Ram Disk is better for temp tmp files should I also use it as a scratch disk for premier pro or carry on using the 40gb ssd for this?

Thanks for all help and advice :)
 
i wouldnt bother, you already use an ssd to cache another ssd, adding a ramdisk is unneccessary and would also reduce available ram for your programs

you clearly use ram-heavy programs wo i;d stick with your current setup
 
panyan said:
i wouldnt bother, you already use an ssd to cache another ssd, adding a ramdisk is unneccessary and would also reduce available ram for your programs

you clearly use ram-heavy programs wo i;d stick with your current setup
Click to expand...

Thanks for reply but what I wanted to know would the RAM DISK be faster than the SSD I am using for cache or wouldn't it even matter or be worth to do it?
 
Using a ram disk for the temp folder can lead to system stability problems (since the ram disk is transient, and during boot up when it's not yet running or when you're fiddling with it during run time, it disappears from the radar even if the OS wants it - bad mojo).

So better on the SSD for that.

All else being equal, ramdisk is faster, and a good choice for transient data you don't mind losing whenever your PC is switched off or blue screens, or anything that writes to the disk obscenely often (so that you can control only doing bulk saves of the data in one go when you commit the ramdisk contents to disk).

For this to be effective, you will need a clear overhead of available ram for which to store the ram disk in. No robbing of Peter to pay Paul by having a ram disk big enough to then cause your running apps to chug with swaps to the pagefile.

In your case with ram-hungry apps (and as well, apps that are likely designed to make use of available ram to speed operations up where possible), a ram disk will only be of value to you if it's used for folders of relatively small files (no more than a couple/few GB).
 
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I use a 4GB RAMdisk for temp, tmp, and temporary internet files amongst other things.

Works fairly well although I've noticed that occasionally cookies get lost e.g. everynow and then I'll load up OcUK forums and won't be logged in. I think this happens when my computer doesn't shut down properly (i.e. crashes) because normally when shutting down it automatically writes an image of the ramdisk to my SSD and then loads it back up on boot, but obviousy if the PC crashes then it misses out this step.
 
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