S
Scott
What happened to the old DOS command that let you setup a
Ram disk? Is there a replacement program in windows XP?
Ram disk? Is there a replacement program in windows XP?
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L
Lawrence
Scott,
I ran across your post, and it got me to thinking about it, too.... I used
to use Ramdisks a lot for video capture.... haven't thought about them in a
long time.... since drives are so much faster these days.
I cruised through my system files for something similar, and found
ramdisk.sys, and ramdisk.inf inside WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\I386\.... but
no instructions for syntax, or anything else, in Windows Help...
Sooo... I cruised the web, and learned quite a bit about it.... turns out
that ramdisks and out-of-the-box WindowsXP (using NTFS) aren't that
reliable. You *can* use a ramdisk in WinXP, but it has to be formatted as
FAT. So Microsoft seems to just avoid it all together, even though they do
provide the files I mentioned above.....
After further reading, I made a breakthrough discovery.... it is the link
below....
http://members.fortunecity.com/qualitysoftware/RAMDisk/RAMDisk.htm
It is limited to 64MB.
It looks pretty decent. It's version 2.2.... some people rave about it....
I think I'm going to try it out.
Good luck,
-Lawrence in Seattle
I ran across your post, and it got me to thinking about it, too.... I used
to use Ramdisks a lot for video capture.... haven't thought about them in a
long time.... since drives are so much faster these days.
I cruised through my system files for something similar, and found
ramdisk.sys, and ramdisk.inf inside WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\I386\.... but
no instructions for syntax, or anything else, in Windows Help...
Sooo... I cruised the web, and learned quite a bit about it.... turns out
that ramdisks and out-of-the-box WindowsXP (using NTFS) aren't that
reliable. You *can* use a ramdisk in WinXP, but it has to be formatted as
FAT. So Microsoft seems to just avoid it all together, even though they do
provide the files I mentioned above.....
After further reading, I made a breakthrough discovery.... it is the link
below....
http://members.fortunecity.com/qualitysoftware/RAMDisk/RAMDisk.htm
It is limited to 64MB.
It looks pretty decent. It's version 2.2.... some people rave about it....
I think I'm going to try it out.
Good luck,
-Lawrence in Seattle
L
Lawrence
It works! 64MB limit though... 63.7MB (I have Norton Utilities, and it's
wants a piece of it to monitor for recovery)
But it's pretty slick... I've been putting it through it's paces.
The install routine is smooth. It shows up in My Computer right after you
boot. Don't forget to go to Device Manager, and set the properties of it...
it's not super clear regarding that... it's default size is only like 230k.
Norton balked at that saying it was too tiny to monitor.
Just go in, and change the size to 67108864. It wigged out when I tried
higher. I named it Z:, the default is B:
Maybe tomorrow I'll try putting my paging file on it.... then I'll have a
speedster of a system!
Have fun.
-Lawrence in Seattle
wants a piece of it to monitor for recovery)
But it's pretty slick... I've been putting it through it's paces.
The install routine is smooth. It shows up in My Computer right after you
boot. Don't forget to go to Device Manager, and set the properties of it...
it's not super clear regarding that... it's default size is only like 230k.
Norton balked at that saying it was too tiny to monitor.
Just go in, and change the size to 67108864. It wigged out when I tried
higher. I named it Z:, the default is B:
Maybe tomorrow I'll try putting my paging file on it.... then I'll have a
speedster of a system!
Have fun.
-Lawrence in Seattle
J
Joshua Smith [MSFT]
As far as doing this for your pagefile, you can accomplish the same thing if
you have lots of RAM by just setting your pagefile size to 0.
you have lots of RAM by just setting your pagefile size to 0.
R
Ron Martell
Lawrence said:It works! 64MB limit though... 63.7MB (I have Norton Utilities, and it's
wants a piece of it to monitor for recovery)
But it's pretty slick... I've been putting it through it's paces.
The install routine is smooth. It shows up in My Computer right after you
boot. Don't forget to go to Device Manager, and set the properties of it...
it's not super clear regarding that... it's default size is only like 230k.
Norton balked at that saying it was too tiny to monitor.
Just go in, and change the size to 67108864. It wigged out when I tried
higher. I named it Z:, the default is B:
Maybe tomorrow I'll try putting my paging file on it.... then I'll have a
speedster of a system!
Let's run through this scenario.
Windows XP (and all other recent versions of Windows) use the paging
file to compensate for the *lack* of sufficient RAM to meet the total
memory requirements of the active Windows components, active
applications, and open data files.
RAM is something like a thousand times faster than the paging file.
So in order to increase the overall performance we are going to take
RAM away from Windows and allocate it to a RAM drive. That will mean
that Windows will have to make increased use of the paging file, and
it will have to be made larger to accomodate this increased usage.
Each instance of increased usage of the paging file results in a 1,000
fold decrease in performance for that specific action.
Sounds like a surefire way to increase performance. Not.
p.s please read MVP Alex Nichol's article on Virtual Memory Management
in Windows XP at http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
Good luck
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
L
Lawrence
While I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm there, Ron, as you'll recall, I
began my posts by replying to Scott's questions about the old ramdisk, of
days gone by. All the other stuff is just what I found out about a cool
little thing with potential for those who need it.
His question reminded me of the days when I'd use a ramdisk for video
capture, because they're lightning fast, as you noted. Nowadays, my drives
are so fast, they never miss a frame, so I haven't used a ramdisk in
years.... Anyway, my curiosity took me on a course which led me to the
program/mod I found, and I just posted my results. That's all.
Josh put forward his opinion, and I mentioned that there's a debate about
that. You've probably read this, but
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/mcfedries/03june16.asp
summarizes it excellently. I mentioned that I get better results with a
paging file, and even better results by spreading it over my two drives.
I hardly think a 64MB guinea pig will be noticed (and it hasn't been) by my
1Gb system. It's just kinda cool to experiment with the technology that's
all.
By the way, one of the applications of the Ramdrive-thing, that one reviewer
mentioned in the article just raved about, was that he used it for caching
some download service he was running on his website. Apparently he was
using the larger version than the 64MB one. The guy thought it was the
greatest thing since sliced bread.
Lastly, who knows what Scott had in mind for a ramdisk? I sure as heck
don't. But it really doesn't matter.
Have a good one,
-Lawrence in Seattle
began my posts by replying to Scott's questions about the old ramdisk, of
days gone by. All the other stuff is just what I found out about a cool
little thing with potential for those who need it.
His question reminded me of the days when I'd use a ramdisk for video
capture, because they're lightning fast, as you noted. Nowadays, my drives
are so fast, they never miss a frame, so I haven't used a ramdisk in
years.... Anyway, my curiosity took me on a course which led me to the
program/mod I found, and I just posted my results. That's all.
Josh put forward his opinion, and I mentioned that there's a debate about
that. You've probably read this, but
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/mcfedries/03june16.asp
summarizes it excellently. I mentioned that I get better results with a
paging file, and even better results by spreading it over my two drives.
I hardly think a 64MB guinea pig will be noticed (and it hasn't been) by my
1Gb system. It's just kinda cool to experiment with the technology that's
all.
By the way, one of the applications of the Ramdrive-thing, that one reviewer
mentioned in the article just raved about, was that he used it for caching
some download service he was running on his website. Apparently he was
using the larger version than the 64MB one. The guy thought it was the
greatest thing since sliced bread.
Lastly, who knows what Scott had in mind for a ramdisk? I sure as heck
don't. But it really doesn't matter.
Have a good one,
-Lawrence in Seattle
A
Alex Nichol
Lawrence said:Just go in, and change the size to 67108864. It wigged out when I tried
higher. I named it Z:, the default is B:
Maybe tomorrow I'll try putting my paging file on it.... then I'll havea
speedster of a system!
You won't. If you have need of a page file without a RAM disk, then
after taking out RAM for the file you will need that much more space in
the file - and it cannot be big enough. You would just be copying from
one part of RAM to another.,
The analogy is of someone who is setting out to drive across a desert.
He needs a bigger gas tank - but is short of space to put an auxiliary
one. So he solves the problem by putting the auxiliary inside the
original tank.
There is not normally any purpose in having a RAM disk these days. XP
will cache files in an intelligent way that is more flexible than
devoting a part of the RAM permanently to a RAM disk. The only purpose
I can see is where you have a program that uses a work file for
temporary storage, that does not need to be ever written to hard disk.
ANd that is an approach that is fast going out in favor of using Virtual
memory space for the work instead.
L
Lawrence
I know.
You must not have read what else I wrote in the thread... I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt.
But this is a FORUM is it not? A news group. Aren't we supposed to
*discuss* topics?
Granted, it is supposed to be a hardware NG, but since Scott asked..... I
replied... you know... in the spirit of *helping*?
Better days,
-Lawrence in Seattle
p.s. I wish Scott would reply, and settle the question of what he wanted to
use it for.
You won't. If you have need of a page file without a RAM disk, then
after taking out RAM for the file you will need that much more space in
the file - and it cannot be big enough. You would just be copying from
one part of RAM to another.,
The analogy is of someone who is setting out to drive across a desert.
He needs a bigger gas tank - but is short of space to put an auxiliary
one. So he solves the problem by putting the auxiliary inside the
original tank.
There is not normally any purpose in having a RAM disk these days. XP
will cache files in an intelligent way that is more flexible than
devoting a part of the RAM permanently to a RAM disk. The only purpose
I can see is where you have a program that uses a work file for
temporary storage, that does not need to be ever written to hard disk.
ANd that is an approach that is fast going out in favor of using Virtual
memory space for the work instead.
You must not have read what else I wrote in the thread... I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt.
But this is a FORUM is it not? A news group. Aren't we supposed to
*discuss* topics?
Granted, it is supposed to be a hardware NG, but since Scott asked..... I
replied... you know... in the spirit of *helping*?
Better days,
-Lawrence in Seattle
p.s. I wish Scott would reply, and settle the question of what he wanted to
use it for.
Lawrence said:Just go in, and change the size to 67108864. It wigged out when I tried
higher. I named it Z:, the default is B:
Maybe tomorrow I'll try putting my paging file on it.... then I'll have a
speedster of a system!
You won't. If you have need of a page file without a RAM disk, then
after taking out RAM for the file you will need that much more space in
the file - and it cannot be big enough. You would just be copying from
one part of RAM to another.,
The analogy is of someone who is setting out to drive across a desert.
He needs a bigger gas tank - but is short of space to put an auxiliary
one. So he solves the problem by putting the auxiliary inside the
original tank.
There is not normally any purpose in having a RAM disk these days. XP
will cache files in an intelligent way that is more flexible than
devoting a part of the RAM permanently to a RAM disk. The only purpose
I can see is where you have a program that uses a work file for
temporary storage, that does not need to be ever written to hard disk.
ANd that is an approach that is fast going out in favor of using Virtual
memory space for the work instead.
J
Joshua Smith [MSFT]
Right. Upon rereading my post I guess I should have been more clear. I by no
means suggest anyone do this unless they want to experiment with it and
understand there could be side effects they don't anticipate. Also If you
are going to do this I wouldn't expect it to be very successful with less
than 512MB RAM. Remember with a page file of 0MB when you run out of space
in RAM your apps will get denied memory allocations which could in turn BSOD
your system. The memory manager in Windows XP does a pretty good job with
managing your memory, I'd leave it alone.
--
Joshua Smith
DirectInput Test Lab
-----
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
ANd let us be quite clear that you are bringing this forward as
something absurd; NOT as advice. A zero size page file is going to lock
up a large part of the RAM to no use and is a bad course of action
means suggest anyone do this unless they want to experiment with it and
understand there could be side effects they don't anticipate. Also If you
are going to do this I wouldn't expect it to be very successful with less
than 512MB RAM. Remember with a page file of 0MB when you run out of space
in RAM your apps will get denied memory allocations which could in turn BSOD
your system. The memory manager in Windows XP does a pretty good job with
managing your memory, I'd leave it alone.
--
Joshua Smith
DirectInput Test Lab
-----
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
Joshua said:As far as doing this for your pagefile, you can accomplish the same thing if
you have lots of RAM by just setting your pagefile size to 0.
ANd let us be quite clear that you are bringing this forward as
something absurd; NOT as advice. A zero size page file is going to lock
up a large part of the RAM to no use and is a bad course of action
A
Alex Nichol
Joshua said:Right. Upon rereading my post I guess I should have been more clear. I by no
means suggest anyone do this unless they want to experiment with it and
understand there could be side effects they don't anticipate. Also If you
are going to do this I wouldn't expect it to be very successful with less
than 512MB RAM. Remember with a page file of 0MB when you run out of space
in RAM your apps will get denied memory allocations which could in turn BSOD
your system. The memory manager in Windows XP does a pretty good job with
managing your memory, I'd leave it alone.
It is worse than that. It would result in locking out a lot of RAM.
The reason is that many programs ask for allocations of virtual address
space far bigger than they actually use, These have to be associated
with some physical device. If there is a page file they can go with
that - resulting in a page file on which there is no traffic. If you do
not have a page file, then they have to be assigned to RAM, and that
part of RAM becomes effectively useless - it can't be used for anything
else. And this can typically run to two or three hundred MB.
See my page at www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm (which I have BTW
discussed with Vince Ordovan)
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