First - I don't know what's the correct name "RAM Disk" or "RAMDisk" ?
... thanks if anyone can put me straight !

Does anyone here use one and/or can recommend a good & reliable one?

I spend a lot of time unRAR'ing and RAR'ing updates & archives of downloaded software and sample packs from different developers. Some of these can be more than 1GB size so use a lot of temporary hard drive access in the process.

I would like to use a RAM/disk to serve as temporary file storage while I unpack and repack my files. A size of 1.5GB~2GB is needed.

Can anyone please suggest a reliable RAM/disk tool.

* I run Windows7, 8GB RAM on my PC (laptop) and don't use any SSD.

Thanks.

 

It's a great idea when you have more than 4GB of RAM to use a couple of GBs for RAM disk. You can spare your SSD from wearing off too quickly, or speed up some disk intensive processing with it, like packing and unpacking files. You can put your browser's cache, 7-Zip's or WinRAR's temp dirs, page file, and your system's temp directory on it. It's also faster than SSD. I have tried various RAM disk programs and found SuperSpeed's RAMDisk Plus to work extremely well. Here: http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php It is not free, though, but if you search around a bit... you know.

The only downside to it is that it's content gets erased once you restart or shutdown the OS, but that's not a problem... actually it's a great feature to lose all the temporary files, especially the Internet ones, eh?

Cheers!

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

[offtopic] @SineWave He doesn't use SSD, however most of the consumer SSD's built in the last 2-3 years are capable to run 10 years in an Enterprise (server) environment. You simply can't wear off a drive to last less than 10 years no matter what you do. And given the technology advancement, in 10 years a 512 GB SSD will be a joke.

 

It's even more useful when you don't use SSD. This RAM disk can actually preserve its content between OS restarts by making a backup on the HD, so one can even put some programs on it.

 

A 4TB 2.5 inch SSD is already here:

 

Guys, he didn't ask for an advice on which SSD to buy...

Here's a nice review of SuperSpeed's RAMDisk Plus: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5487/superspeed-ramdisk-plus-11-software-review/index.html

Read it, maybe you'll want to use it, too.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

Thanks SineWave for reminding me about the temp caches for RAR & web browser. I want to put those in the RAM drive too.
You said you've tried various RAM disk programs; I bookmarked some 'how-to' guides and a lot of them refer to 'DataRAM RAMDisk' (free) have you tried this?

 

I have tried every possible RAM disk on the market and off the market at the time, about 4 years ago, so I can't remember precisely why I chose SpeedDisk's RAMDisk, but I visited DataRAM's webpage and they have a freeware version which supports RAM disks up to 1GB so you can try it yourself easily. They do look like a good company. Maybe I didn't like it because their RAM disk doesn't support some advanced features that SpeedDisk one does, or that the freeware version supports RAM disks only up to 1GB? I can't remember, sorry.

However, there is this interesting RAM disk speed comparison here: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/12-ram-disk-software-benchmarked-for-fastest-read-and-write-speed/ and it can serve as info on which ones to try.

I can't remember if I tried this one but I would certainly try SoftPerfect RAM disk because it is the fastest, it is free for personal use, and it supports quote: "persistent RAM disks with an associated on-disk image". This is a pretty important feature. I hope it supports putting pagefile on it. Maybe that's why I favoured SpeedDisk RAMDisk because they support holding pagefile on a RAM disk. Quite an important feature.

 

I remember why I chose SpeedDisk's RAMDisk! I chose it because it was the only one at the time which supported using RAM above 3.5GB on an XP 32-bit OS. It really is a very advanced RAM disk and I had absolutely zero problems with it, and I used it a lot. But not many people use 32-bit OS these days so this feature is not such an advantage any more. I would probably go with the free SoftPerfect RAM disk these days then as it seems small and efficient, it's the fastest one, and seems to have all the right features: https://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/

Cheers!

p.s. please post here about your experiences with the RAM disk you choose. I'd like to know about it. Thanks!

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

Re. Pagefile.sys on a RAMdisk,

With my laptop - I usually Sleep or Hybernate instead of Shutdown at the end of each, and would do the same for a tower PC.
I would think that doing this when Pagefile.sys is in volatile RAM, then on the next wake-up, where would be no snapshot of the previous running state to wake-up to !
- correct ... or does Windows have a solution for this ?

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

using asrock bundled free ramdisk software with 4gb space. It automatically can point all windows temp directories to that, which speed up your system a bit. don't wanna miss that!

 

bigboobies - thanks. Yeah I noticed that in google search.
Do you know what it's called?
Is it proprietary to Asus motherboards - need a driver to run at hardware level, or a Windows app.?

On the topic of hardware specific - I see something about NVidia GPU hardware RAMDisk on google too!
I wonder what that's about?

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2016

That from asrock ist called XFastRAM. There are _many_ ramdisk programs available, first try all freeware stuff you can obtain, because the difference between all is extremely tiny.

 

Next week or so I'll be making some changes around here in my studio [installing W7x64 for audio on my main computer], starting this weekend with changing some hard disks for bigger and better ones, plus changing RAM modules for bigger and better ones, and I might setup a RAM disk again on my main computer because there's never enough speed ffs eh? I'm going to try SoftPerfect RAM disk first and I'll post my findings.

edit: but I'm still deciding if this change is necessary or not! HDs are on the way, but not RAM. I've got 2x2GB of ultra speedy CL7 1600MHz RAM and G.Skill doesn't sell such speedy modules any more. :/ I'm thinking Kingston HyperX 2400MHz CL11 4GB RAM modules could "fit the bill" and work at 1600/CL7. I don't use Kontakt or very memory consuming VSTs, so 4GB is kinda enough for me. I'll decide next week when I see how W7 "breathes" with my setup. I'm yet to make my own W7 lite, too, erase all the unnecessary microshit crap from it before I "taint" my main computer with it. Should take a couple of days to do that. I plan to share it with the AS community btw. My W7 lite installation DVD should be about 1.2GB big. Less than 1GB RARed or 7Zipped.

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2016

If someone needs a really nice Windows 7 x64 lite version that is clean from garbage and ready for audio production here you go:

Part1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vemvtyoy7gldrkf/Windows7SP1Lite.7z.001?dl=0
Part2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lzhyaqrjx3mqilo/Windows7SP1Lite.7z.002?dl=0

I hope Dropbox links are alright with you. I could upload to Zippy or somewhere if needed.

Cheers!