Remember that doing so can add a significant amount of time to your PC’s startup and shutdown if you don’t plan on using your RAM disk often or for critical saves, consider leaving those options unchecked. Likewise, check the Load Disk Image at Startup option and make sure it’s pointed to the same location if you want the software to reload your saved data to the RAM disk automatically when you boot the computer. If you want the software to save your RAM-disk data to a traditional hard drive when you shut down the computer, check the Save Disk Image on Shutdown option and choose a location for saving the disk image. If you decide that you like Primo Ramdisk, a personal license for two PCs will set you back $30. Most utilities save the entire RAM-disk image every time your PC shuts down, which is what takes so long. The program includes a Quick Save feature that updates your existing disk image and saves only new or altered data. If that sours things for you, give the free trial of Primo Ramdisk disk a whirl. A 4GB RAM-disk image, for example, takes several minutes to copy to a 7200-rpm hard drive. This arrangement works well (unless you suddenly lose power), but it adds considerable length to the PC’s startup and shutdown times, especially if you’re running a large RAM disk on a traditional hard drive. Most RAM-disk utilities bypass this problem by including an optional feature that automatically saves the contents of your RAM disk to a hard drive during shutdown, and then reloads the data to the RAM disk during startup. Since RAM disks are volatile, they lose their data every time the PC loses power. That means most people won’t be able to set up a RAM disk that’s larger than 4GB. Size limitations are a significant drawback: The size of the virtual drive is constrained by your system’s total RAM, and you’ll want to leave at least 4GB of memory untapped and available for general computer use (more is recommended). The storage capacity is severely limited in comparison with that of a standard hard drive, and the inherent volatility of random access memory can be a headache if you store important files or programs on your RAM disk. Of course, running important programs from a RAM disk has some notable disadvantages, too. Games run more smoothly from a RAM disk too, although coaxing Steam titles into working with a RAM disk is a bit of a hassle, and storing a whole game in a virtual drive requires a big chunk of memory. For example, moving Word, Excel, Firefox, and Acrobat off of my laptop’s 7200-rpm hard drive and onto a RAM disk resulted in the apps’ loading nearly twice as quickly, rivaling the opening speeds on an SSD-especially when opening large files. The biggest everyday performance gains occur when you fully install a program on a RAM disk. That makes a RAM disk a wonderful tool for hastening operations in which your machine must read and write a lot of data, such as media encoding or editing large batches of photos. The following guide provides you with an overview of the best free RAM Disk programs for devices running Microsoft's Windows operating system.Ī RAM Disk, also called RAM Drive or RAMDisk, works in many regards just like a hard drive.RAM disk read/write speeds blow away the speeds of even top-of-the-line SSDs. The core difference is that it is a virtual hard drive that uses RAM for storage. With it come notable differences born out of that: a RAM Disk is faster than hard drives, and the storage space that it offers is only available during the session unless the software supports the saving and loading of disk images. These traits make RAM Disks ideal for a lot of purposes. You may use it as fast, temporary storage for temporary data. Move the browser cache to the RAM Disk, and never have to worry again about it filling up valuable disk space (as it is only available during that session). You may even install applications or games on the RAM Disk to benefit from faster loading times and less performance related issues while playing those games or using those apps. Another option is to move files that you want to process to the RAM Disk to speed that up. The resembles to AMD Radeon RAMDisk is obvious. It is more limited than AMD's version, as you may only create RAM disks up to a size of 1023 Megabytes using it.Ĭhanges may be saved on shutdown, and you may select to load the saved image on start.
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