Ram Drives, do you recommend them?

I just read about it today.

Im wondering if it would benefit me as I have an SSD and 16 GB of 1600 MHz. Ram

The thing is, now that I have all my programs installed on C: My SSD.

How will the RAM drive work? like do I need to reinstall Firefox and all my other programs for example on the RAM Drive?

Or is it just good for caching files and temporary files to reduce SSD Thrashing?

My System Specs:

ASUS G75VW-T1086V
CPU: i7-3610QM 2.30/3.30 GHz.
Memory: 16 GB DDR3 1600 Mhz. RAM
Storage: 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
Graphics: GeForce GTX 670M 3GB
Screen: 17.3' Full HD LED Screen

 

I use Ramdrives, and have used them since the late 1970s. No harm in tossing a couple gigs up there, then using it as your cache for say Opera or Chromium, which actually does reduce SSD thrashing. Ramdrives are very quick, and usually speed up a browser significantly. Of course you can store other stuff on there..

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

Here is how to do it for each browser;
http://malwaretips.com/Thread-Speed-up-Chrome-Firefox-by-using-a-RAM-disk

 

excellent guide! thanks a lot bro

 

SSDs don't thrash. But some people worry about micro-writes, though this shouldn't be an issue on newer SSDs.

The benefits of a RAMDisk are:

1) Far faster cache writes
2) Files that may not be cached, will be.
3) Once you clear the disk, no one can recover the data.

That's about it.

 

hmmm, i've set it up but I don't really see any notable difference in performance of browsing

 

might be because I have an SSD I didn't notice a diff. with the RAM Disk

 

Don't see the point for general use when modern operating systems cache file system data so well.

Of course like tweaks and various system tools such as advanced defrag tools I accept there are niches where a ram drive may work well, but in general purpose usage, no.
Anyone got any benchmarks ?

Cheers, Nick

 

I wouldn't expect a huge difference going from SSD to RamDisk. Probably talking tiny fractions of a second overall.

I'm sure there is a performance boost,but beyond some level they become pretty unnoticeable to the untrained eye.

 

I have tried them in the past (pre-SSD) to put cache files on, browsers, and other frequently loaded files, but didn't notice any difference. I used to have 32-bit win XP, which could only use 3 GB for system memory of my 4 GB ram at the time, so I used the remaining 1 GB for a ram drive. Didn't notice a difference.

If you do want to try ram drives, then take a look at eBoostr (not free, but I think you can trial it for free). It can use part of your ram or USB drives for faster caching. I've had it installed for a long time, but am unsure whether it's boosting anything because I haven't figured out or really even tried to benchmark my system with eBoostr vs. without. (I should run some benchmark tests for it, but it's one of those things I installed and then forgot. fwiw, it's own speeed test claims to boost "access speed" five fold on my system).

 

Interesting read. -http://www.bjorn3d.com/2013/01/ramdisks-maximizing-high-capacity-ram/#.UQFQtL_oR9A

 

@ jdd58, really interesting read. Thanks for the reference.

► Nice to see that 'SoftPerfect RAM Disk' is faster; I'm using it for some months ago and it works well here;

► Good to see that 'SoftPerfect RAM Disk' "which is extraordinarily fast compared to even the SSD array we tested against".