LOTS of ram? Use ramdisk for ready boost?

L

lens pirate

Weaksauce
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Jan 1, 2009
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I am doing a interesting experiment. I have 12 gigs of ram so I have some to spare.
So I created a 4 gig Ramdisk and I am useing it for a Vista Readyboost target.

If nothing else the results should be interesting. Has anybody else tried this?
 
If you're gonna go that far, you might as well avoid setting it for ReadyBoost and just move the pagefile to the RAMdisk... but there's a lot you can do with a RAMdisk... :D

3... 2... 1... any second now this will turn into a shitstorm controversy thread... I hope not. ;)
 
lens pirate said:
If nothing else the results should be interesting.
Click to expand...
No they won't. It's been proven that with 2GB of ram, ready boost has zero performance improvement.

As for the pagefile on the ramdisk, does the software create the disk before it starts writing the page file, or is it something you have to set up every time you start your computer? Or does it depend on the software?
 
bigdogchris said:
No they won't. It's been proven that with 2GB of ram, ready boost has zero performance improvement.
Click to expand...

You know that huh? So you have data where someone has created a 4 gig RAM cache for the O/S and Apps managed by superfetch and got no speed boost? Forget a bunch of flash drives. The reduction in disk access alone should make things snappier.
 
What I believe bigdogchris meant to say was that ReadyBoost was designed primarily to aid machines with less than 2GB of physical RAM - that much is a fact and Microsoft's own information and FAQs about ReadyBoost will attest to it. Vista and Windows 7 really hit their stride with 2GB of RAM or even more, but those older machines that don't quite have or support that much will see a benefit from using a Flash-RAM based device for ReadyBoost duties.

While it's impossible to say that ReadyBoost has absolutely no improvement in performance on a machine with 2GB or more of physical RAM (impossible as it does in all situations, but as the amount of physical RAM increases, ReadyBoost's benefits grow smaller and smaller, but they're still there even if the amount is minute), it can't hurt if you've got some spare USB sticks around and you feel like tossing 'em in the ports for ReadyBoost duties.

Suffice to say that 2GB or more of RAM will give users the biggest benefit of all: a smooth running machine, with Superfetch loading up all the most commonly used apps and data files, exactly as designed.

But you can still get big boosts in performance from a RAMdisk... ;)
 
lens pirate said:
You know that huh?
Click to expand...
If you want to keep this civil, drop the kiddie attitude. Now, using some amount of logic, I wouldn't think you'd see much of a difference in your given example. Why is that? Because Vista is actually quite good at managing your RAM. Readyboost is meant as something similar to a page file, for when you are low or out of physical memory, and would normally dump out to the pagefile. However, since flash media can be quicker in some methods than your hard drive, the access to the file would be quicker. I could see using a RAMDisk for something like scratch area for Photoshop, if you were a graphics designer, etc, but not as a place for ReadyBoost.

You basically would be telling the computer that instead of using 12 GB of memory, only use 8, and if that runs out, use this 4 GB drive I have created (in my remaining RAM). There's no reason to do so, when you could just tell Vista to use all 12 GB of memory anyway. You are basically making a much more complicated process of achieveing exactly what your computer does be default anyway.
 
DeaconFrost said:
If you want to keep this civil, drop the kiddie attitude. Now, using some amount of logic, I wouldn't think you'd see much of a difference in your given example. Why is that? Because Vista is actually quite good at managing your RAM. Readyboost is meant as something similar to a page file, for when you are low or out of physical memory, and would normally dump out to the pagefile. However, since flash media can be quicker in some methods than your hard drive, the access to the file would be quicker. I could see using a RAMDisk for something like scratch area for Photoshop, if you were a graphics designer, etc, but not as a place for ReadyBoost.

You basically would be telling the computer that instead of using 12 GB of memory, only use 8, and if that runs out, use this 4 GB drive I have created (in my remaining RAM). There's no reason to do so, when you could just tell Vista to use all 12 GB of memory anyway. You are basically making a much more complicated process of achieveing exactly what your computer does be default anyway.
Click to expand...

Ready boost is not a page file or a swap file. Its managed totally differently. Its purpose is not at all like that of a swap file. That is why this is interesting. Readyboost is a special level of cache designed to reduce hard drive access by keeping many of the small files commonly accessed that cause your hard disks to churn. Swap/Page files is carpet bombing, readyboost is a smart weapon. Different beasts.

My reasoning is that I never use or cache all 12 gigs of ram now. There is never more than 5 or 6 gigs in use. There for I have some extra to use differently.

By creating this special cache targeted a the small slow to access files that require lots of SLOW non-sequential disk access operations and putting those files on a Managed, ULTRA fast ram disk that would other wise be wasted ram. It can't help but benefit.

Where is the fault in that logic?
 
bigdogchris said:
You still havn't proven us wrong with your benchmarks.
Click to expand...

Well thats a good point. I am not sure exactly how to go about benchmarking over all improved disk access or application performace. Not sure there is a synthetic that accurately measures over all system responsiveness.

I am willing, but just not sure to how to quantify this. Any suggestions?

Here is what I have so far and it is entirely subjective...

First of all it does not seem to have done any harm. None of my commonly used applications seem to have suffered from this. This includes games. Load times and game play have not been adversly impacted.

All of my productivety apps that I use over and over again... Mainly MS office and Photoshop, lightroom and so on load faster. You know that gain in load time you get after you have opened a app then closed it? Once you open it back up it loads way faster? Well I now seem to get that right away. This just snap and pop... I know.... I know thats subjective!

But how do I measure it?
 
The fault in the logic is that ReadyBoost is designed to assist in low RAM situations where there isn't enough RAM for Superfetch to prefetch and cache all the data that needs to be prefetched and cached. As stated already (twice, I believe), ReadyBoost can "pick up some slack" when you're on a low RAM system (say 1.5GB or less physical RAM) and Superfetch doesn't have quite enough memory to work with to be able to cache all the necessary data adequately. ReadyBoost comes in and helps out - but it is NOT Superfetch just using Flash-RAM devices - and handles some of the smaller files that get paged out of RAM and would normally be assigned to a page on the hard drive (a page is 4K of data, hence the page file has nothing but 4KB chunks in it - which is a given anyway considering NTFS uses 4KB logical clusters - the actual cluster size on all hard drives is 512 bytes, go figure).

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

To make a long story short: once you cross about 2GB of physical RAM in a machine, the need and the usefulness of ReadyBoost becomes less and less apparent as Superfetch has all the RAM it needs for your average Joe (not me, I assure you) and all average Joe's (not me, I assure you) applications and data to get squarely prefetched and cached into that abundant RAM on a 2GB or more machine.

If you have more than 2GB - and the OP most certainly does - using ReadyBoost becomes absolutely unnecessary. The best solution and the fastest performance you'll achieve from such a machine with 12GB of RAM in it is to use some RAMdisk software to set up a RAMdisk, say 4GB if you're up to the challenge, and then assigning all Temp/TEMP variables to that RAMdisk, assigning all Internet caching to that RAMdisk for your browser(s) that are in use, potentially moving entire applications onto the RAMdisk by creating "portable" versions so they execute totally within the confines of RAM (with a hard drive mirror which is a feature of better RAMdisk products), and other tips and tricks that will maximize the RAM far and above what Superfetch is capable of.

Make no mistake, you can have what you think is a fast damned machine that's lightning quick and responsive, then a guy like me can get my hands on it for 20 mins with a RAMdisk and wham, you'll piss your pants seeing just how truly fast that hardware can be when I'm done with it. And that's not even adding in top of the line SSD hardware either, I'm talking about with using plain old spinning platter hard drives... Throw something like an Intel or OCZ Vertex SSD in such a machine and I'll have it pushing the needle well into Ludicrous Speed, I assure you. :)

So, to make it point blank "in-your-face, Strawberry!!!" simple:

Less than 2GB of RAM: ReadyBoost can and does help with system performance.

2GB of RAM or more: ReadyBoost can not and does not offer any sufficiently tangible benefits for any system regardless of CPU power or storage speed that using the actual system RAM more efficiently can't do, sometimes magnitudes or order better performance.

ReadyBoost has one purpose and only one: to assist low RAM machines with performance related to small file caching and paging, it does not work like Superfetch does as Superfetch is part of application related memory and not system related. Superfetch deals with application data and files when stored in system RAM; system related are pages of data that deal with the virtual memory subsystem when the system RAM is taxed... two entirely different scopes, non-related on most levels.

So, for all the huffing and puffing, that's the fact, Jack... stick that in your logic gate and smoke it. :D

As for what's some good RAMdisk software, I use and recommend RamDisk Plus from SuperSpeed.com, have done so since it first appeared long ago and it's the only one I will probably ever recommend. They're working on a Windows 7 compatible version currently, expected to be done just after Windows 7 goes gold.
 
Joe, I have to say I love reading your posts, very informative and interesting. Its nice having you around.
 
If you have more than 2GB - and the OP most certainly does - using ReadyBoost becomes absolutely unnecessary. The best solution and the fastest performance you'll achieve from such a machine with 12GB of RAM in it is to use some RAMdisk software to set up a RAMdisk, say 4GB if you're up to the challenge, and then assigning all Temp/TEMP variables to that RAMdisk, assigning all Internet caching to that RAMdisk for your browser(s) that are in use, potentially moving entire applications onto the RAMdisk by creating "portable" versions so they execute totally within the confines of RAM (with a hard drive mirror which is a feature of better RAMdisk products), and other tips and tricks that will maximize the RAM far and above what Superfetch is capable of.

Make no mistake, you can have what you think is a fast damned machine that's lightning quick and responsive, then a guy like me can get my hands on it for 20 mins with a RAMdisk and wham, you'll piss your pants seeing just how truly fast that hardware can be when I'm done with it. And that's not even adding in top of the line SSD hardware either, I'm talking about with using plain old spinning platter hard drives... Throw something like an Intel or OCZ Vertex SSD in such a machine and I'll have it pushing the needle well into Ludicrous Speed, I assure you.
Click to expand...

This is BALLS ON ACCURATE. I have my system set up with just a 1 GB RAM drive for my temp files and Vertex SSDs for my programs. It is the best change / upgrade I have made in years.
 
Well, I've posted on this before, and people didn't believe me, so we'll try again.

Setting up a Ramdisk for your PageFile/ReadyBoost drive is kinda silly. These tricks you're playing is like having a 5 gallon drum for water, deciding that's not enough and buying 5 1 Gallon drums to replace the 5 gallon drum.

The operating system will page following it's algorithm. (There are a couple to choose from, I suggest the Patterson and Henessey book)

Ramdisks can be a great performance tool, if you have some solid I/O bounds. But O/S paging should never be I/O bound unless your system is under extreme constraints, and if you are in said constraints, the absolute last thing you want to do is to limit RAM.

I suggest you use this ramdisk for your most I/O bound programs/games. (I've been tempted to copy World Of Warcraft to a ramdisk and see if it helps Dalaran loading for example...) Just be forewarned, that Ramdisks are the worst thing for data retention. ;)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Sorry to slightly hijack here, but I'm liking the sounds of Average Joe's work with putting temporary files onto a Ramdisk, and I'm curious if him or another expert could post a simple guide (or point to a good existing one) on how to do these optimizations.

For example, changing Photoshop scratch disks might be easy, but what are other key temporary files that can be moved to a Ramdisk and how does one make those changes? (Thinking core Windows temporary files, log files, web browser caches, moreso than specialty apps). Sounds like a good way to reduce writes to an SSD as well.
 
Change the Windows environment variables TMP and TEMP to point to the RAMdisk you create, simple. From that point on, any temporary files created by the OS or any applications - unless they offer some ability to do so independently of environment variables, and some do - will be done directly on the RAMdisk which is obviously far far faster than any hard drive and even the fastest SSD yet to be made.

As for browsers, simply alter the options so the cache points towards the RAMdisk the same way. You can even install some software directly to the RAMdisk, which is something I do quite often. Since I use the mirroring ability (data is mirrored to the physical hard drive during lazy writes in idle times, not concurrently) I've never lost any data - and my machine is on kickass APC UPS battery backup so I never worry that something like that would happen anyway.
 
Joe Average said:
Change the Windows environment variables TMP and TEMP to point to the RAMdisk you create, simple. From that point on, any temporary files created by the OS or any applications - unless they offer some ability to do so independently of environment variables, and some do - will be done directly on the RAMdisk which is obviously far far faster than any hard drive and even the fastest SSD yet to be made.

As for browsers, simply alter the options so the cache points towards the RAMdisk the same way. You can even install some software directly to the RAMdisk, which is something I do quite often. Since I use the mirroring ability (data is mirrored to the physical hard drive during lazy writes in idle times, not concurrently) I've never lost any data - and my machine is on kickass APC UPS battery backup so I never worry that something like that would happen anyway.
Click to expand...

Well Joe,

I had some interesting result with all of this. In the end your right that the idea of using RAM disk for ready boost was a dud. No real help once I tried some objective measures.
No obvious down sides either.

On the other Hand I tried your Idea of Using Superspeed Ramdisk and ther drive mirror feature. I them moved my temp variables, browser cache and Photoshop scratch files to it. It did speed things up, software installs have become lighting fast due to the temp variable. So yes this worked. Will I keep it set up this way? Oh yeah.

So I was wondering what other common applications can have temp/scratch/cache files moved. I looked all over MS office for cache file settings found none? WHat about other Adobe Master suite aplications?

Anyway good advice so far.
 
I made a post earlier that got lost in the shuffle. When that software creates the ram disk it can be set to create it on system boot correct? If you were to point temp files and other types of files you don't mind being wiped, to a ram disk, how long of a delay is there between it being created on boot and the system attempting to access a disk that isn't there. Or is this something you would have to set up every time you rebooted?
 
The RAMdisk is a service, therefore it loads when the OS loads, and is always available before you get to the usable Desktop. Would be a bit pointless if it didn't... :)

And when you're using the mirroring option, whatever is on the RAMdisk when you initiate a reboot or complete shutdown is mirrored to the hard drive (so depending on the size of the RAMdisk you can expect longer reboot/shutdown cycles) and restored upon the next reboot.

It's sorta kinda the same principle as Superfetch in that respect: it stores the contents of the RAMdisk on the hard drive (as Superfetch keeps a record of data it caches) and is restored the next time the machine is booted/rebooted (as Superfetch prefetches the data right back into RAM when you start up again).

As for other apps, most by default will use the TMP/TEMP environment variables to create a single point/location where all the temporary stuff goes, hence putting it on the RAMdisk results in ridiculously fast operation with program installations, etc. I mentioned making portable apps before and running them completely off the RAMdisk, that's that another option.

You should try getting Photoshop installed with Thinstall sometime... and running absolutely from the RAMdisk. :) On my Q6600 @ 3 GHz box with 8GB of RAM, when I put my custom made PS CS4 Thinstall portable installation on the RAMdisk, it starts up in about 2.5 seconds, if that much... "Ludicrous speed, indeed..." :D
 
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Joe-is RamDisk known to not work with Win7, or is it a matter of just not being fully tested and supported?
 
RamDisk Plus (could be called v10, there's no official word just yet) is currently in testing at SuperSpeed, and will end up with a final release sometime after Windows 7 is finalized ("Gold" aka RTM) and on the market afterwards.

It won't even install on Windows 7, regardless of Compatibility Mode or not, and believe me, I've tried every known way of working around the "locks" they have on it to stop it from installing... it simply won't go...
 
Any tutorials around that explains how to set up a kick ass ramdisk? Thanks.
 
I've got a question that I'm sure Joe can answer. Sometimes windows update works in steps, with a reboot happening and then the update continuing after that. Is that dependent on data that Update might store in TEMP and expect it to be there after rebooting? This obviously isn't an issue if the Ramdrive is saved on shutdown and reloaded on startup, but seems like it could be otherwise.
 
bmg said:
I've got a question that I'm sure Joe can answer. Sometimes windows update works in steps, with a reboot happening and then the update continuing after that. Is that dependent on data that Update might store in TEMP and expect it to be there after rebooting? This obviously isn't an issue if the Ramdrive is saved on shutdown and reloaded on startup, but seems like it could be otherwise.
Click to expand...

Windows Update creates it's own working directory. usually a string of numbers and letters at the root of the drive with the most free space...

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Readyboost in systems over 2 gigs does help with battery life and hard drive access on laptops. Thats about it.
 
rakista said:
Readyboost in systems over 2 gigs does help with battery life and hard drive access on laptops. Thats about it.
Click to expand...

Indeed, ReadyBoost is pretty much useless with anything more than 2 GBs of RAM. I mean you might notice a 1-2 second improvement from games/applications, but that's about it.
 
This might be an old thread but Ive picked up a good bit of info. If A Joe is still around this forum Id love to ask.

Whats best in terms of a performance upgrade in your opinion? Divide up my ram 50/50 ramdisk/system memory or similar or get a fast SSD for my OS, running 32 bit windows 7 Pro but Ive got 64bit windows 7 Pro on the way.I don't want to spend anymore cash just now, maybe later.
 
Agree with everything Joe said.

Readyboost is amazing until you cross the 2GB threshold. Win7/8 do an amazing job of utilizing all avail memory unlike XP

I also use SuperSpeed RamDisk+... I use 6/24 GB for temp/scratch with an SSD, and yes you will definitely notice the performance improvement. Not to mention reduced wear and tear on the SSD.
 
steve_uk said:
This might be an old thread but Ive picked up a good bit of info. If A Joe is still around this forum Id love to ask.

Whats best in terms of a performance upgrade in your opinion? Divide up my ram 50/50 ramdisk/system memory or similar or get a fast SSD for my OS, running 32 bit windows 7 Pro but Ive got 64bit windows 7 Pro on the way.I don't want to spend anymore cash just now, maybe later.
Click to expand...

Start a new thread for this , your likely to get better answers.
 
steve_uk said:
This might be an old thread but Ive picked up a good bit of info. If A Joe is still around this forum Id love to ask.

Whats best in terms of a performance upgrade in your opinion? Divide up my ram 50/50 ramdisk/system memory or similar or get a fast SSD for my OS, running 32 bit windows 7 Pro but Ive got 64bit windows 7 Pro on the way.I don't want to spend anymore cash just now, maybe later.
Click to expand...

Get an SSD.

I've tested running games off an SSD vs Ramdisk, and while the benchmarks for the Ramdisk blew the SSD away, the actual real world performance difference was very small. Ramdisk is great for temp files and as a scratch drive for photoshop, or video encoding, etc... But for normal usage, the SSD is a better investment.
 
Thanks for the input folks, Ive now got windows 7 pro 64bit but the extra ram has not yet arrived. I will see how it goes, if my ram doesn't get used I'll set up a ram disk for temp files and give it a try.

Sata3 drive or usb3 device based on random access memory would be the ssd killer but who's going to make such a device? Does the architecture mean you may as well buy a mobo that takes the ram or if you hit the limit of you mobo would such a device be worth adding to a system? Bandwith is most tuners aim I guess.
 
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