I think I went overboard with 16 GB of RAM so what now, RAM drive?

[Barfo]

I use my desktop computer for web browsing and gaming mostly and it seems I have 8 GB too much for these tasks so I was wondering if I could do something useful with the spare memory.

What's the state of RAM drives these days?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

RAM Drives are useful if you have a task that's I/O limited even on a SSD, which will fit in 8GB or less, and which you can gleefully erase when done.

The only thing I can think of would be a photoshop scratch disk... maybe. I'm sure there are other things - somebody around here was a USPS employee that did a lot of database stuff, and used RAM Disks as scratch disks for some kind of computing task that was confidential and had to be erased afterwards.

I guess it might make software compiles faster too. But you'd have to copy the finished product somewhere else afterwards.

 

[Mfusick]

wtf can youdo with a 8GB ram disc...

Just run 16GB ram

 

[dave_the_nerd]

wtf can youdo with a 8GB ram disc...

Run a REALLY FAST Win95 VM?

 

[Blain]

How about buying software that can take advantage of your hardware?
That's the whole purpose of hardware isn't it... running software?

 

[Soulkeeper]

I too have 16GB of mem
I setup a variable size tmpfs
It grows up to 12GB leaving whatever it's not using for the system.
I save files I download to here and untar, transcode, install, etc.
Windows should have something similar for you.
Also long uptimes will use whatever amount of mem you throw at it as buffers/cache grow, this is typical of most all modern OS behavior and a good thing.

I don't think you made a mistake given the current prices and trend towards things using tons of mem going forward.

 

[corkyg]

Hindsight is always accurate. But, sometimes we need to deal with what is as opposed to what might be. Here are some possible uses for a virtual RAM drive created out of your excess RAM:

1. Speed up most Windows activities, like accessing programs and editing files (documents, spreadsheets, photos, etc.) by pointing TEMP files to your RAM disk.

2. Speed up web browsing by pointing your browser cache to a RAM disk. This also keeps your web browsing activities private as the RAM disk wipes out all activity - including browsing history, website login information, website visits and searches - from your browser cache each time you shut down unless you choose otherwise when creating the RAM disk.

3. Speed up access to minimized files when you have multiple applications open and running by placing the pagefile on a RAM disk.

4. Reduce writes to solid state drives by placing TEMP files, the web browser cache or the pagefile on a RAM disk

 

[razel]

You are using Win7. If you aren't already, use get used to standby without the hybrid hibernation, instead of reboot or shutdown. As you continue to use your computer over weeks, you'll see that Windows will do a FANTASTIC job of caching all your favorite things to RAM.

 

[GPz1100]

I use a 2GB ramdisk for temp files and scratch disk.

Directory of S:\temp\*

11/29/2012 17:52 <DIR> .
11/29/2012 17:52 <DIR> ..
12/05/2012 1:44 <DIR> basecamp
11/29/2012 17:52 <DIR> bat
12/03/2012 10:26 <DIR> Cache
11/29/2012 17:52 <DIR> ie
11/29/2012 17:52 <DIR> mapsource
11/29/2012 17:52 <DIR> thunderbird

With 32GB, running out of ram is no longer an issue, even with multiple VM's.