RAM Drive Help

[Collider]

Greetings,

I got 3 gigs of ram and want to maximize performance on my system.
Should I consider creating a ram drive?
Can I force virtual memory to be kept in ramdrive?
and What else can I use it for?

software mostly used: adobe cs3, ms visual studio, ms office
sys specs: below in sig

 

[EagleKeeper]

The only benefit of RAM drive is if you can map a physical drive to memory for applications.

Windows usually has some Temp environment variables that you could redirect.

The OS should use as much of physical memory as it can for itself.
Realize that if you dump power to the system, anything stored in the RAM will be lost

 

[Nothinman]

I got 3 gigs of ram and want to maximize performance on my system.

Then install the memory and use your machine like normal. No amount of tweaking will make a noticeable difference and will likely just end up in you causing yourself more problems than anything else. It may not seem like it sometimes but MS' kernel developers understand memory management much better than you.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: avp2306
Can I force virtual memory to be kept in ramdrive?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I got 3 gigs of ram and want to maximize performance on my system.

Then install the memory and use your machine like normal. No amount of tweaking will make a noticeable difference and will likely just end up in you causing yourself more problems than anything else. It may not seem like it sometimes but MS' kernel developers understand memory management much better than you.

I read this as he does not feel that all of it is being used effectively, not that he needs more memory.

I have 2G on a laptop and even with VS and Office application open, do not come close to hitting the limits.

I have applications that heavily hit the disk (on a laptop, they are slow) so, I force the intermediate disk files into a memory mapped area which improves performance. The applications are written so I have the flexability to direct the scratch files (similar to the Temp environment variable).

 

[Collider]

Wouldn't it speed things up if Windows virtual memory was kept in ram?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Virtual memory is written to disk IF there is not enough memory available to the OS.

 

[Nothinman]

The pagefile isn't virtual memory, virtual memory is just a method for abstracting access to physical memory. The pagefile is just one repository that the kernel can use to store data when memory is getting low.

And the pagefile isn't the only backing store for VM, the pagefile is only used whenever there is no other backing store available so putting it on a RAM disk would only affect some I/O. And then there's the fact that putting the pagefile on a RAM disk would completely defeat the purpose of the pagefile because it's sole job is to hold data when there's not enough memory available and by creating a RAM disk and putting it there you're artificially limiting the amount of memory on the system. Paging to/from the pagefile will definitely be faster but you're also increasing the amount of paging that you're doing.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The pagefile isn't virtual memory, virtual memory is just a method for abstracting access to physical memory. The pagefile is just one repository that the kernel can use to store data when memory is getting low.

And the pagefile isn't the only backing store for VM, the pagefile is only used whenever there is no other backing store available so putting it on a RAM disk would only affect some I/O. And then there's the fact that putting the pagefile on a RAM disk would completely defeat the purpose of the pagefile because it's sole job is to hold data when there's not enough memory available and by creating a RAM disk and putting it there you're artificially limiting the amount of memory on the system. Paging to/from the pagefile will definitely be faster but you're also increasing the amount of paging that you're doing.

If you have a ram drive disk card (4 gigs seen as another disk), would putting the pagefile on there make any difference at all to windows as far as performance?

 

[Nothinman]

If you have a ram drive disk card (4 gigs seen as another disk), would putting the pagefile on there make any difference at all to windows as far as performance?

Probably, but that's a waste of a pretty expensive disk.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Well the last company I worked for went out of business so I got one with 4 gigs of ram on it for free. Good to know though, thanks. I'll try it then.

 

[Collider]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The pagefile isn't virtual memory, virtual memory is just a method for abstracting access to physical memory. The pagefile is just one repository that the kernel can use to store data when memory is getting low.

And the pagefile isn't the only backing store for VM, the pagefile is only used whenever there is no other backing store available so putting it on a RAM disk would only affect some I/O. And then there's the fact that putting the pagefile on a RAM disk would completely defeat the purpose of the pagefile because it's sole job is to hold data when there's not enough memory available and by creating a RAM disk and putting it there you're artificially limiting the amount of memory on the system. Paging to/from the pagefile will definitely be faster but you're also increasing the amount of paging that you're doing.

So if I understand you correctly, I will not gain any performance setting up a ram drive and using it as a scratch disk for windows?

What about for other apps like adobe?

I got 3 gigs and 2 drives, all program files are on the first drive which is in raid 0, and the second 500g is just storage for media, work, etc.

Whatis the best config performance wise?
To which drive should I set the pagefile to, primary, secondary, or disable it all together?

 

[0roo0roo]

not if u already have enough ram
only way to speed up is get ssd disk or raptor for the inevitable drive acesses.
buy those..
or stop worrying, windows is smart enough to use the memory as necessary

 

[Nothinman]

So if I understand you correctly, I will not gain any performance setting up a ram drive and using it as a scratch disk for windows?

What about for other apps like adobe?

Not really. Some apps like Photoshop have their own internal scratch disk, something left over from when Mac OS had no real memory management of it's own, and it might help there but you'd still be wasting a good chunk of memory to create the RAM disk. Using a separate hard disk for that is usually more than sufficient.

 

[Collider]

What about pagefile config?
Do I gain anything by setting it to be on the secondary drive or disabling it altogether?

 

[0roo0roo]

it can be good to have it on a second drive. something to do if you already have a second drive, its not that important.
never disable it.
the only good tip is that you should set max/min the same so it doesn't spend time resizing/get fragmented because of resizing. normally 1.5x ram is pagefile rec. but at todays memory its a bit large. i only set mine to 1.5gb, but i know i'm never going to use more than 2gb ram+1.5gb page. if you think you'll use more, set it higher.

 

[Collider]

hmm I've ran my system for as long as I could remember w/o page file, and I was under impression that I had slightly better performance.

just set the pagefile onto the 2nd drive. will look for any changes in performance.

 

[Nothinman]

Do I gain anything by setting it to be on the secondary drive or disabling it altogether?

Depends on your configuration, if you're working with a lot of data on the second drive then no. Any gains had by messing with your pagefile will likely be too small to matter, you've probably already wasted more time in this thread than you'll save by moving your pagefile. And disabling it altogether is a terrible idea because Windows was designed with the assumption that one exists and some apps will fail without one.

the only good tip is that you should set max/min the same so it doesn't spend time resizing/get fragmented because of resizing.

That's not true either. The pagefile only ever grows and only when it's close to full so by the time it's growing you're already paging like mad and won't notice any difference.