Stupid question re RAMDISK

N

no_control

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
1,429
Hopefully in the right forum

I do a lot of CAD work as well as a little adobe stuff (Premier, pshop, illus.)

I've been looking into reviseding my CAD station with an SSD drive and ran across the website for the RAMDISK+ program

I have 8gb of RAM currently and I'm really interested in using this to speed up my system and load times...Question is how?

I don't really understand exactly how I can use this to any benefit. Yet on the surface it seems there should be one. sorry for the newbness. I'm usually able to figure this stuff out on my own but I don't want to f up my workstation. Does anyone have any experiance with this?

Are there online guides for this? Is this a common approach? Is this viable for CAD/engineering programs like AutoCAD, Sketchup and Revit?

TIA
 
Yes you are in the right area.

You have 8gb of ram, I would personally go with the SSD route in that case, you don't have enough ram to spare for your system, scratch, and application.

Joe Average coming into this thread 3...2...1.....
 
I'm sure joe will be right behind me but Ockie was right 8gb is bit short. Now if you're willing to upgrade you could go with p45 mobo which supports 16gb of ram. That would give you enough ram to create a ramdisk for scratch disk etc.
 
Now if you're willing to upgrade you could go with p45 mobo which supports 16gb of ram. That would give you enough ram to create a ramdisk for scratch disk etc.
Click to expand...

That's not out of the question.

I was thinking of using the SSD just to make the OS and some programs more "snappy" during launch or loading. I'm interested in the RAM idea because then I wouldn't be limited on the PCI bus speed. I have a hard time believing that 8gb of RAM isn't enough. If my system breaks 2gb of RAM usage I would be surprised. My main problem is I don't understand enough about the RAMDISK concept or programs to effectively (IMO) implement it.
 
Ok here are the basics of how it works
You use ramdisk software (I use superspeed ramdisk plus) to use part of your ram as a hard drive.
now to windows it appears as a regular disk, windows assigns it a letter and you can use it just like any other hard drive.
The beauty is the speed. Over 3GB/s read and 2GB/s write
Here's bench of mine.
HDTune_Benchmark_SuperSpeed_LLCRAM_Disk-read.png

HDTune_Benchmark_SuperSpeed_LLCRAM_Disk-write.png

You can use this super fast disk as a scratch space for photoshop etc, and you can also use it as temp work area.
Now there are some limitations:
- Can't boot from it, it doesn't exist until you actually load windows
- If you loose power and don't have ups all you data is lost.

Depending on the sizes of files you work with carving out 4gb out of your 8 might be enough, there is a trial version of the superspeed software so give it a try and see how you like it.
 
So, do you have to load the files on the ramdisk every time you boot? or does it already have it on their once its started?
 
I guess the part I'm not getting is what files do you put there? windows temp files? the entire program (autocad?) just the working file.

I can see makeing the scratch space for photoshop (adobe in general) But I'm not seeing how I can use this to make the overall system faster. Sorry if I seem a little thick on this :p
 
Markistehnamezor said:
So, do you have to load the files on the ramdisk every time you boot? or does it already have it on their once its started?
Click to expand...

depends on ramdisk software used, the one I use can make automatic backup at reboot/shutdown and automatically restore at startup.
 
no_control said:
I guess the part I'm not getting is what files do you put there? windows temp files? the entire program (autocad?) just the working file.

I can see makeing the scratch space for photoshop (adobe in general) But I'm not seeing how I can use this to make the overall system faster. Sorry if I seem a little thick on this :p
Click to expand...
It won't make your overall system faster, all it does is make applications that are limited by hard drive faster. For example you can have the fastest computer but if you try load a huge file into adobe it will take minutes, with ramdisk it takes seconds.

If you want to make your whole computer faster including boot etc then you need faster drives, something like ssd or fusion io
 
Ah so if I install a game onto my disk drive, but put it on a ramdisk. Then I load the game, will it read/write map files on the ramdisk? Also since it does a back up like you said, Could I just uninstall it off the disk and keep my files w/o losing them on the ramdisk?
 
most games need to run from where they were installed. You can install the game on ramdisk and keep a backup on a disk.
 
I used to run adobe preimeir on a ramdisk becuse it was much snappier. SuperSpeeds RAMdisk Plus is what I would use if I were you.
 
what if you're running a 64-bit OS and the OS obviously has picked up the entire, hypothetical, 8GB of ram ?

Can RAMdisk+ still allocate a portion of RAM to a disk ?
 
Yes...It just shows up as allocated in the resource manager.
 
hboogz said:
what if you're running a 64-bit OS and the OS obviously has picked up the entire, hypothetical, 8GB of ram ?

Can RAMdisk+ still allocate a portion of RAM to a disk ?
Click to expand...

yes, i use vista x64 on a system with 16gb of ram and I regularly use 12gb as ramdisk
 
I just ran a test on my ramdisk for this thread. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1356130

Next to last post right now. I have my specs and everything in the post. I use the system for my sign business (large format printing) and regularly have to deal with psb files exceeding 3 to 4gb.

 
Has anyone experienced issues with the RAMdisk failing or disappearing ? Obviously i'm going to be throwing important (big) files on this drive and what would happen if Windows craps out ( i know, such a rarity.)
 
I only have experience with the superspeed ramdisk plus in vista x64. I never had any issues with it, it's very reliable. But if something crashes your OS then whatever data is in ramdisk at that time will be lost unless it's backed up. Ramdisk plus gives you tools to take snapshots of the ramdisk and you can schedule it to do it every x amount of time.
 
I have Win XP Pro SP2 (32 bit) & the system in my sig.

I have 4gb (2x2gb DDR2-800) ram & read that my OS only uses 3.25gb
- gaming, PS CS3, Pinnacle Studio 11 (video editing)

The site says RamDisk can use that .75gb!
- would that be worth $50 for the app?

"It can also use the stubbornly inaccessable memory between 3.2GB and 4GB... see help file for what "unmanaged" memory is & how to use it with RamDisk Plus 9."
Click to expand...

Would $50 for the app + $50 for 4gb ram be worth it - for a 4.75gb RamDisk?

Would I notice the loss of asynchronous mode (2-slots vs. 4 slots)?

Would that be worth $100?
 
all depends what you want to use the ramdisk for, 4gb is not enough for gaming but it can help with photo/video editing and other "work" related tasks
 
Yea it all depends on what you want to use it for.
I bought an extra 20GB of RAM and use it for the Pagefile.sys, scratch space for Photoshop and the likes.
 
Would I notice the loss of asynchronous mode (2-slots vs. 4 slots)?
Click to expand...

I don't think so. The RAM is set just by virtue of how it phsically sits on the mobo. not by how the system uses it. It would be like partitioning a RAID0 volume. It's still RAID0 just 2 logical partitions. This works the same way.


I bought an extra 20GB of RAM
Click to expand...

damn baller are you video editing?

I was going to get ramdisk and try it out bought some extra RAM downloaded the demo...FAIL

They don't demo they're 64 stuff and it cost 2x as much for the 64 program. That's stupid. I'm not going to drop a c-note for these joker to test drive their software. After I thought about I didn't see much use for it. I couldn't see how it was going to help in my situation so I just decided to return the RAM and move on. I guess if you use photoshop or something to make a living it could be a worthwhile endevor.
 
Yea you can demo the x64 version here

Its awesome....I do Video Conversion so it makes it go a lil faster.

And I like VM's
 
It's not, at the moment. Too much BS in real-life to focus on doing a proper guide, no time for setting up the testing environments, etc. Sooner or later I'll get it done but, there's no projections on the actual "product" turning up anytime soon. :(

I hate the holidays... hehe
 
Also keep in mind - there is an alternative to Superspeeds Ramdisk software which is considerably cheaper. It pretty much has all the same features and works just fine. I've been using this one for several years now at my business. The guy that writes this one is also reasonably quick to personally respond to support emails and updates it a couple times a year. He only asks for a small donation for a fully licensed and supported version. I will say he is honest and hitting the PayPal button on his site is safe. It might be half a day to get a response though.

http://members.fortunecity.com/ramdisk/RAMDisk/ramdrivmain.htm



 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top