Vista RAM Disk howto create?

[qa4eve]

Vista Gurus,

I want to create a RAM DISK on Vista
I.e. I want to use part of my 2GB available RAM, lets say 512 MB, to create
a disk volume accessed as for example R:\ when the system is up and
running.

I.e. not using a USB memory stick but actual physical RAM.

This in order to speed up certain temporary file access.
How do I do that?
If only3rd party solution is available please could you point me to an
evaluation downloadable?

Thank you,
QA4Ever

 

[Ken Blake]

Vista Gurus,

I want to create a RAM DISK on Vista
I.e. I want to use part of my 2GB available RAM, lets say 512 MB, to
create a disk volume accessed as for example R:\ when the system is up
and running.

I.e. not using a USB memory stick but actual physical RAM.

This in order to speed up certain temporary file access.

You may speed up temporary file access, but you will very likely *hurt*
overall performance by giving Windows less memory to work with, and thereby
causing it to page more. Using a RAM disk in Windows is almost always
counterproductive.

 

[qa4ever]

Hi Ken

So what you are saying is that even if I only create a 50-100 MB RAM DISK
that is constantly used by a Server Application for streaming data thru, the
OS can use that RAM better to cache the data faster than the RAM DISK assess
can? How can this be the case isn't a lot applications compeeting for that
RAM?
Also is there any cons using /REALTIME switch to speed up a Server
Application that mostly access only disk not much network.
Are there any good whitepaper on this?

Thank you for your time,
QA4Ever

 

[Ken Blake]

Hi Ken

So what you are saying is that even if I only create a 50-100 MB RAM DISK
that is constantly used by a Server Application for streaming data thru,
the OS can use that RAM better to cache the data faster than the RAM DISK
assess can?

No, I am saying that in *most* sistuations where people set up a RAM disk
under Windows, it would have been much better to let the operating system
use it. I can't tell you anything about this specific situation, especially
without knowing any of the details.

By all means try it. It doesn't hurt to do so. But don't be surprised if it
hurts performance, rather than helping it.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


How can this be the case isn't a lot applications compeeting for that

 

[cyn]

You may speed up temporary file access, but you will very likely *hurt*
overall performance by giving Windows less memory to work with, and thereby
causing it to page more. Using a RAM disk in Windows is almost always
counterproductive.