Ram Drive, this particular type of drive has been around for decades.
DIY-Computer-Repair can help!
Looking for a way to speed up your computer? Have You thought of a RAM Drive?
A couple of months ago I added some extra memory to my tower computer. At
the time I had a bad memory module but couldn't find which one it was. The
original configuration was four 1 GB DDR 2 800 MHz modules dual channel.
Having a couple of spare 2 GB DDR 1066 MHz modules (no 1 GB modules) from a
computer build that I didn't do I pulled two modules and put in the tw0 2 GB
modules to see what would happen.
(I did use a Windows based memory tester but it didn't find the bad memory,
more on that in a memory test article. I had to test the memory with DOS to find
the bad one.).
Because the length of time it takes to test that much memory it is faster to
remove one or two modules at a time by swapping them for other memory.
After upgrading from four to six GB of Ram I thought about the extra 1.75 GB
of ram the Windows XP 32 bit couldn't use.
So I did a search for RAM Drives that are compatible with Windows XP
and Windows 7 (this is a dual boot system).
Having used RAM Drives up until Windows NT I found them quite useful
especially for holding the Windows Paging or Swap File and the Temp directories.
By putting the Paging File (PF) and temp directories in the ram drive you don't fill up
your hard drive with temp files and the PF or Swap file never gets fragmented
(this will cause a slow down on some computers, mainly it will depend on how
large and how old the PF is for fragmenting to take place).
Why? Because once you build your RAM Drive image that loads at startup when
you shut down it is just deleted. Now if you change something with the RAM Drive
and want to keep it you have to make another image, about the same as doing a
backup image of your OS.
I wanted to test three different free and shareware products, two of them
were failures either the download was corrupt or it contained a virus. So I will
not list them.
This is the one I tested
RAMDisk(by DATARAM) it is not expensive, around 20 USD. The features
and the benefit are worth the cost.
If you decide to get the RAMDisk by DATARAM you can start off with 30 day
free trial. However it will not support memory above 4 GB.
You can however test the software and see if it is compatible with your
Operating System and hardware with out paying for the program.
I have an ASUS motherboard with 8 GB of ram now, this gives me a 4 GB RAM
Drive.
On the RAM Drive I have my PF and the Temp directories including the
directory for my web browser's cookie files (Changing the location of your
cookie files requires editing the registry, see this
e-course for help if you decide to do this). And I have about 400 MB of
drive space left over for small files.
Some of the features you will get with this program:
Create a RAM Drive
Set startup
Set memory above OS usable memory
Create an image of the RAM Drive
Load the image of the RAM Drive at startup
It will also run on 64 bit Operating Systems such as Windows 2000, XP, Vista,
Windows 7, Server 2000, and Server 2003. (I checked the web site and
Server 2008 isn't listed as of yet).
This is a slide file, if it doesn't display properly refresh your browser.
So after four months of operation I haven't seen or felt any draw backs from
using it. How ever it will use a drive letter so if you are short of drive
letters take this in to consideration.
By using a RAM Drive for my temp/PF drive I have found that my computer
starts a little faster (it takes approximately 48 seconds to get to the Log On
screen). It is defiantly faster with response for any file that has been swapped
out to the PF.
And I had a virus called Asault hit my computer when I was downloading
files for testing (See my blog entry
http://www.fix-it-blog.com/?p=1216 ) and when I restarted I got the 'file
not found error', all I had to do then was clean out the registry where it was
set to start.
I will give this program a thumbs up and a rating of 10 of 10 for the
publishers. Good Job!
Q and A
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
