Having RAM show up as a drive?

[Smartazz]

I'm running Windows XP Pro right now and I'm wondering if there's a way to use the RAM like a hard drive like you could with the older Mac OS's as I remember. Does Windows have a feature like this? Thanks.

 

[oldman420]

nothing built into xp but there are ramdisk programs that will do that.
from http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=131

What is a RAM Disk ?
Ramdisk is a virtual drive created in RAM. The advantage being it's much faster than a Hard disk drive can ever be, since it has no moving parts - transfers are all electronic. There is a catch, however, RAM Disk is volatile storage, meaning data on it is lost the moment you lose power, or reboot the computer. RAM Disks also take away from your system's available RAM. Once you reserve a portion of the RAM for such disk, it is no longer available for your running programs.



How do I create one ?
The Ramdisk driver we use for this guide is almost identical and based on the Microsoft sample driver described here: Microsoft KB 257405. The version we use in this article fixes a bug with Windows XP and NTFS partitions (described in the MS KB article) and adds the ability to change drive letter and disk size in a more user-friendly way, using the Device Manager.

We can install/configure the Ramdisk in three simple steps:

Download and uncompress the Ramdisk driver in an empty directory you can remember: Ramdisk Driver

2. In Control Panel -> Add/Remove Hardware, select Add a new device -> select hardware from a list -> Other(All) devices -> Have Disk, then point to the folder that contains the RAMDisk.inf file you extracted in step 1. Click next/finish to complete the driver installation.

You can change the size / drive letter of your new Ramdisk from the Device manager: Right-click on My Computer, select Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> expand the RAM Disk -> Properties
At this point you have successfuly installed and configured a RAM Disk drive on your system. Keep in mind that the contents of the RAM disk are lost when changing its size and/or drive letter in Device Manager! They are also lost if power is lost, computer rebooted, etc. You might want to reboot and copy some files to your new RAM disk from within Windows Explorer to ensure it's operating properly.

Notes: In Windows XP, you might have to go to Control Panel -> System to access the device manager. Depending on your OS, you might be prompted to reboot after the drive is installed. Keep in mind that the size of your Ramdisk is substracted from the available RAM, so don't use any wild values. Depending on the intended use, 1 - 16 MB should be the enough, even in systems with plenty of RAM.

 

[silverpig]

Yes you can.

 

[Smartazz]

Thanks a lot guys. This is just what I needed. My TV tuner has to load onto a hard drive, but my hard drive is slowing it down way too much, so I thought I'd give this a try.
edit: Alright, it's working, thanks.