[builttospill]

Thanks I never heard of this. My windows 7 machine has 32G of RAM. What is a safe amount you can use for RAM disk? Do you use it as scratch disk or virtual memory?

Randy

Sorry for the delay in my response; I got busy grading final projects before the semester came to an end.

A RAM disk is just like any other disk, but the data is stored in the RAM. It's much faster than a SSD because the RAM is on the motherboard. There are no cables the data has to travel through. Basically you allocate a certain amount of memory from your RAM and assign it a drive letter, then it's just another disk, but a really fast one. It can be used for anything, but performance is impressive when used as a scratch disk.

There really is no set "safe" amount. Just look at how much memory you aren't using and set it aside as a disk. Don't use too much or your RAM will be limited, causing poor performance throughout your machine. I have more than enough RAM so I don't need to worry about setting aside too much.

One caution though: RAM is temporary. I never store long-term data on flash memory. Yes, it's become more reliable, but there are a limited number of read/write times on SSDs. This is why it works perfectly as a scratch disk. If the RAM goes bad I swap the stick out for another one on my shelf and I'm good to go. All my long-term and frequently accessed data is stored on spindle drives.