Ramdisk to speed up browsing?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by newbino, Dec 3, 2007.

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  1. newbino

    newbino Registered Member

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    Hi, I am investigating a possible install of SandboxIE after reading several positive reviews on Wilders. As I was perusing the SB forum, I noticed a couple of posts advocating running the sandbox and the browser in a ramdisk, including a link to an interesting article:
    Article
    A search on Wilders does not bring up much about ramdisks.
    Apart from the possible advantage in running it with SB, can anyone comment on their experience of ramdisk + browser? Or, maybe, other interesting uses.
    Thanks
     
    newbino, Dec 3, 2007
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  2. Franklin

    Franklin Registered Member

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    Haven't used or really heard much about ramdisks and sounds interesting.

    I think Returnil works sorta like a ramdisk and is very easy to setup and use.

    Sandboxie and Returnil are my mainstay security apps and work fine together.
     
    Franklin, Dec 3, 2007
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  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I doubt you will see much gain in surfing from a ram disk. The biggest gain would be in things that are disk i/o intensive. That isn't surfing.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Dec 3, 2007
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  4. newbino

    newbino Registered Member

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    Thanks Peter. Now, what categories of applications/processes are generally disk i/o intensive?

    This is beyond my present understanding, a brief search was not very enlightening.

    Any comments or links appreciated. :D
    Thanks
     
    newbino, Dec 3, 2007
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  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Generally things like database searches. A word processor for example does very little disk activiy until you save something.

    For most general purpose home use, I'd venture to guess it wouldn't be worth the bother. In fact it might not at all be worth the memory you give up to run it.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Dec 3, 2007
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  6. Rmus

    Rmus Exploit Analyst

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    I experimented with this in Win9x days. It didn't affect the downloading/caching of pages, but keeping the cache folder in RAM would make retrieving those pages faster, say, if you closed a web page and then went back to the site later. This pretty much became a moot point when Opera put in a RAM cache.


    ----
    rich
     
    Rmus, Dec 3, 2007
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  7. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

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    You wont gain much from a ramdisk on an NT based OS, a decent browser has memory cache, the web files that are stored on disk will go through the OS cache.
    Only the odd dumb app will improve with a ram disk.
     
    NGRhodes, Dec 3, 2007
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  8. newbino

    newbino Registered Member

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    I guess the message is clear, thanks for the info and opinions guys
     
    newbino, Dec 3, 2007
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