With RamDisk Plus & 10GB of RAM, is it wise to move win 7 pagefile.sys to RAMDisk?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 1, 2004
Messages
7,848
Say I have 10 GB of RAM, and SuperSpeed Ramdisk plus say:

http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php

RamDisk Plus 11 has a most unique feature. Our patent pending technology can access memory beyond the limitation imposed by a Windows 32-bit operating system! In other words, RamDisk Plus 11 can use "unmanaged" Windows' memory e.g. above 4GB. It can also use the stubbornly inaccessable memory between 3.2GB and 4GB.
Click to expand...

You can tell they are supporting the idea.

http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/faq.php#R001

Q: How do I put a pagefile on a RAM disk?
A:

1. Right-click on "My Computer" and click on "Properties".
2. Click on the "Advanced" tab.
3. Click the "Settings" button in the "Performance" box.
4. Click on the "Advanced" tab in the "Performance Options" dialog window.
5. Click the "Change" button in the "Virtual Memory" box.
6. In the "Virtual Memory" dialog window
1. Select "RamDisk"
2. Select the "Custom size:" radio button
3. Set initial size and maximum size to be just a little smaller than the size of the RAM disk. Tip: Immediately above "Custom size:" is "Space available:" which is the size of RAM disk.
4. Select the drive that currently has the paging file.
5. Select the "No paging file" radio button.
7. Click "OK".
8. Restart the computer for the new settings to take effect.

Important: Pagefile support is available with RamDisk Plus 11 on 32 or 64-bit versions Windows 7, Vista or XP.
Click to expand...

Also, I'm planning to move to SSD, so would a pagefile.sys in RAM remove the wear on a SSD, make it last longer?
 
Last edited:
Seems counter-intuitive to put a pagefile (used when there is no free RAM) onto a RAM drive.
 
Forceman said:
Seems counter-intuitive to put a pagefile (used when there is no free RAM) onto a RAM drive.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. The best use of a RAM drive is to put all the temp files on it. That include Windows and any app that uses lot of temps, like web browsers.
 
Yes, you would benefit, but why insist on using a 32bit edition with that much ram?
 
Forceman said:
Seems counter-intuitive to put a pagefile (used when there is no free RAM) onto a RAM drive.
Click to expand...

There is 6.5 GB of free RAM. Windows only see 3.5GB. The remaining RAM can't be seen by windows, so there is no overhead, i.e., windows is not able to see the RAM usage in the RAMdisk.

I stick w/ win 7, 32 bit because I'm concern that win 7, 64 bit may not be compatible with all the software, especially some of the older games I got
 
Win 7 is compatible with almost anything, plus you could always run in Win XP mode if you get the right version. As far as the RAM goes, use the RAM drive for something useful, not the pagefile. Move your apps or games to it or something, instead of the pagefile.
 
I do plan to put temp files and Firefox cache files as well as Chrome cache files (I don't know how to put Chrome cache file in RAMdisk), but on top of all these, I figure there is space for the pagefile.sys file as well.

So if it's faster or beneficial to reducing the write cycle on a SSD, (I'm getting SSD in a few mth.), I figure it would be worth the investment. As I already bought RAM Disk Plus
 
It'll work just fine on the RAMdisk. Since you simply won't use a 64 bit OS (let's not go there since it's been covered in the past in other threads), using the RAMdisk in that manner and putting the page file on the RAMdisk isn't going to do anything but improve system performance. It won't mean your machine is suddenly 20x faster in everything, but it will be faster overall than having a page file on any physical media, even an SSD..

You've got RAM to burn, so to speak, might as well put it to use in some manner.

Make a 6GB RAMdisk and point everything temporary to it, put a 1GB static pagefile on it, get rid of any page file that exists on a physical drive (the SSD if that's your intention), and even run some portable versions of apps from the RAMdisk. Since RamDisk Plus can even mirror the content on the RAMdisk to a file on the hard drive, you can actually install real apps directly to the RAMdisk and they will exist between reboots in the same state - just as they would if they were installed to physical media. The big difference is the speed boost when accessing the apps or the data: a RAMdisk is way way faster than any physical media and significantly faster than any SSD on the market today or for years to come.

If you have that much RAM in that system and you choose not to run a 64 bit version of Windows, this is the most logical and functional use of the additional RAM that Windows itself can't make use of but the RAMdisk application can.

Not much else needs to be said.
 
mklink /D "C:\Users\Bapa\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache" "D:\chrome_cache"

Thanks for the reply. I do a search and found the above to move the Chrome cache to the RAM disk.

However, do I have to type in the above in every boot up?

Also, when you said run portable ver. of apps from RAMDisk, are you referring to the installation of any application, and use that option "Save RAM disk image automatically at system shutdown option"?
 
No, technically that's not a portable version. Portable apps are ones like those found at http://portableapps.com - they are complete self-contained applications, the full versions of whatever you can find available there, and once "installed" they exist inside a single folder and no place else.

You can move that folder anyplace you like after it's functional and never again have to really worry about reinstalling the application unless a new version comes out - if that's that's case, you "install" the new version into the same folder, wherever it happens to be, etc. Most portable apps can update themselves from that folder anyway (as Firefox does for me - I've had the same Firefox folder for over 2 years now, currently at 3.6.10 and it still works without a single problem for me).

The "Save RAM disk image" thing with RamDisk Plus allows you to save the entire RAMdisk to the hard drive - the issue for you, Happy, is that if you did choose to create the 6.5GB RAMdisk as I mentioned would mean that every time you shut down or reboot your PC, it's going to save a 6.5GB file to the hard drive before it shuts down or reboots and then it has to restore that file to the RAMdisk upon the reboot/startup so it's somewhat impractical if you reboot or shut your PC down frequently.

My laptop(s) stay running 24/7, I have no reason to ever shut them off and the only time they are rebooted is for some update if necessary. Not everyone does that but, I do. I have 4GB of RAM in my primary laptop and I have 1GB of that set aside for a RAMdisk for all the temp stuff, Firefox portable and several other portable apps as well, mirrored upon a shutdown/reboot as required.

You have to figure out what's best for you and your machine. If you very rarely shut down or reboot the box, then using a large capacity RAMdisk can have very beneficial effects with almost no drawbacks save the one: a very long shutdown period and a very long startup period.

Also, if you were only using an SSD in your system (impractical given their sizes), using that for writing that mirror image file each time you shut down or reboot can just be inefficient as well. If you've got a real hard drive in the machine someplace for general storage, that would be the target for the RAMdisk image file.
 
thanks for helping out. I always turn off the computer, because of the noise, the electricity (bad for the earth environment) and the computer do last longer, the less time it's running. So I can't go w/ Portable applications, but the browser cache is very useful, it's much faster, as well as the tmp/temp files. The reduction on HD defragmentation, especially they are small files is great.

I'll do the pagefile.sys file as well, like you said, Win 7 can't see beyond that 4Gb.

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