What is a ram disk and how to create it in RAM - Dataram RAMDisk. RAM Disk: virtual partition in RAM

Hello GeekTimes! Absolutely incredible power and performance is hidden in the word RAMDisk - Once upon a time there were even special devices that simulated the operation of a ramdisk at the hardware level - Gigabyte i-RAM, for example. However, now with access to a huge amount of RAM, building virtual disks is becoming even easier. What does this give? The answer is under the cut.

First, the hardware configuration - to make a big RAMDisk you need a lot of RAM. “I have them” - 128 selected gigabytes of DDR4 HyperX Savage - how much more? Strictly speaking, my motherboard does not support such a volume of RAM, but with the help of a tambourine and a few other shamanic accessories, I managed to start the stand, albeit with a reservation, at a frequency of 2133 MHz. Otherwise, everything is of the highest standard - eight memory sticks of 16 gigabytes each, beautiful proprietary HyperX Savage radiators, a long warranty period, technical support (in case you yourself cannot cope with the setup and installation). Such a kit needs an appropriate test bench, and I also have it at my disposal.

• Processor: Intel Core i7-5960X
• Motherboard: ASUS Rampage V Extreme, Intel Socket 2011-3
• RAM: HyperX Savage DDR4-2666 128 Gb (8*16 Gb)
• System SSD: HyperX Predator PCI-E SSD 480 Gb
• Video card: AMD Fury X
• Power supply: Corsair AX1200i, 1200W
• Operating system: Windows 10 Professional (64-bit)

In the vastness of this RAM you can deploy anything you want. Surely you can run all installed programs at the same time, and maybe even several instances of Mozilla Firefox (sarcasm), but today I’m interested in virtual disks.

When your computer has an indecent amount of RAM, you want to use it as much as possible, and RAMDisk is the most successful use. At the moment, there is a fairly wide selection of software for working with RAMDisk, but I will build using software that has already proven itself on the positive side and has collected a number of reviews - DATARAM Ramdisk and ROG Ramdisk.
The first software is shareware; previously it was possible to purchase a high-quality license with a good discount when purchasing AMD products.
The second option comes free with ASUS Republic Of Gamers series boards. As soon as testing takes place on the basis of the ASUS Rampage V Extreme/USB3.1 motherboard, it would be a shame not to evaluate the capabilities of this software.

Of course, the temptation is great to create 64 gigabyte disks, but I have two programs, which means they will try to eat up all the available RAM. Therefore, I will limit myself to two disks of 32 gigabytes each.

Testing the RAMDisk turned out to be quite difficult, because many programs do not want to deal with it, such as the familiar and convenient PC Mark 8 - it completely refuses to pass the test on the specified partition, giving an error. In this case, the fact is that the use of RAM Disk will lead to a significant increase in the result and the system of protection against “unfair play” is triggered, because PC Mark 8 ratings are used by many enthusiasts to compare the performance of their systems.

Crystal Disk Mark 5.1.2

Crystal Disk Mark demonstrates that not all yoghurts are equally useful, namely the ROG disk is faster than the DATARam and quite significantly.

Copying a file from a RAMDisk to another RAMDisk is a very fun procedure - everything happens almost instantly. A huge video file, the recording speed of which on a RAM Disk is limited only by the reading speed from a USB source, flies at supersonic speed inside the RAM.

Copying a disk from an SSD to a RAM Disk is also very fast - the speed is limited by the reading speed from the solid-state drive, and similarly in the opposite direction - you won’t be able to work faster than the SSD writes.

As an application software, I offer a purely subjective assessment: working with photographs in the DxO OpticsPro 10 application. The task was to export 20 photographs from Canon RAW format (CR2) to a full-size JPEG with PRIME quality noise reduction turned on. Much of this task depends on the processor, but still working with data storage is also important.
The result is a difference of about 20 percent compared to exporting to a HyperX Predator system PCI-E SSD. Is this too much? Yes, quite a significant increase, because overclocking the processor by 10% (300 MHz) changed the packet processing time by only 1%.

It was not possible to take advantage of all the benefits for games, or rather, everything works correctly, without any questions, but the FPS in two very demanding games: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Total War: Attila did not increase relative to the test results of games that were installed on PCI- E SSD.

So what is a RAMDisk for? What can you speed up with it? Archivers (who needs to compress/decompress data so quickly). Browsers (quick access to all the cache you have). Saving the recording resource of SSD cells (a controversial point when taking into account the cost of a large amount of RAM). content creators running large files in Adobe PS/AI and so on (the most realistic example).

The cost of RAMDisk is not one of the strengths of the “project”. In terms of rubles per gigabyte, an SSD drive will be much more profitable than a colossal amount of RAM - a Kingston KC400 SSD with a capacity of 128 GB costs from 3,800 rubles, a 128 GB memory kit will cost 83,000 rubles. But the read/write speed exceeds budget SSDs by more than 10 times, and besides, a large amount of RAM has never harmed anyone. Unless the wallet will be unhappy, but who cares =).

There are some nuances and disadvantages: Small volume for storing information, although if we are talking mainly about temporary storage of media files during processing, there is no point in complaining. The second caveat: if there is no ASUS ROG board, there is a need to purchase high-quality software for creating a RAMDisk. The third feature: volatility - let the RAMDisk image be saved every time you exit Windows, but in the event of a sudden power failure, data loss cannot be avoided.

Thanks for your attention and stay tuned Kingston on Giktimes!

Even from a depressing situation with hardware, there is a way out - from “voting with your wallet” to technological progress, which slaps the well-fed faces of marketers and forces them to release what customers crave. Everything will be great, we promise!
We are also damn, incredibly happy to communicate with like-minded people on our blog and intend to give high-quality Kingston hardware to our subscribers. At the end of June we will give 11 subscribers of our blog 1 SSD drive

The technology that allows you to use part of the system RAM as an additional disk device has been known for quite a long time - since the early 80s of the last century. SoftPerfect RAM Disk is one of the solutions to increase the speed of heavy applications on your PC and extend the life of your SSD. Logic dictates that this technology should be most widely used today, when RAM memory is cheap and plentiful.

But the facts say otherwise - few PC users know what a memory disk is and the benefits of its many advantages.

The main idea here is not only to make full use of the computer's available RAM, but also to achieve a significantly higher operating speed - not in percentage terms, but several times.

RAM chips in modern PCs are often significantly faster than even ultra-high-performance SSD drives, which in turn are seriously ahead of classic magnetic HDD devices in this regard.

But RAM disks have one serious drawback - since the information stored on them uses volatile media (silicon chips), after a power failure (that is, after turning off the computer), this data ceases to exist.

Fortunately, today there are simple tools, such as SoftPerfect RAMDisk, which you can download for free to solve this problem in a simple and elegant way. The program periodically writes (and accordingly when the system is turned off) all information from the RAM device to a special partition of the system hard or solid-state drive.

This way, RAM disks become highly independent with little loss of speed. And when combined with an SSD device, the issue of compromise is so small that it's not even worth mentioning.

By the way, in the context of creating and managing a RAM disk, it is no coincidence that I mentioned SoftPerfect RAM Disk. There are other similar programs on the Internet, such as qSoft RAMDisk Enterprise and Dataram RAMDisk, but SoftPerfect RAM Disk for Win 10 is one of the easiest tools to install, configure, and use.

After installing the application, you just need to select the “Add boot-mounted disk” option to specify the letter, size and format of the partition on your hard drive or SSD to which data from the RAM disk will be written.

Its size can vary depending on the amount of RAM available, as well as what percentage of it you are willing to allocate for use as an in-memory disk.

Most modern PCs have at least 4 GB of RAM, which makes them ideal for using SoftPerfect RAM Disk - in such a system you can safely allocate 20-25 percent of the available RAM.

SoftPerfect RAM Disk takes care of the rest, including the ability to create more than one virtual disk. After assigning a letter, the drive will appear in the Windows Explorer menu and you can use it like any other device in the system.

But how to benefit from such a disk? First of all, it can significantly speed up the loading of any program that uses temporary (cache) buffers - for example, Adobe Photoshop.

The same applies to any web browser - if you configure it so that it uses the RAM disk as a buffer cache, it will not only work faster, but will also not clog up your hard drive with unnecessary temporary files.

RAM disks are also useful if you want to extend the life of an SSD device. It is a known fact that after a certain number of rewrite cycles, solid-state drives “wear out” and stop working. So if you deal with applications that love to constantly access the disk device, redirect them to a RAM disk created using SoftPerfect RAM Disk - this will extend the life of the system SSD.

Have a great day!

One of the previous articles discussed the feasibility of creating a virtual disk in RAM. Now it's time to figure out what programs to create RAMDisk better to choose. Three tools were selected from the entire variety of software:

• qSoft RAMDisk Enterprise
• Dataram RAMDisk
• SoftPerfect RAM Disk

During the testing process, the speed characteristics of the created disks will be examined using the ATTO and CrystalDiskMark benchmarks. Additionally, applications will run in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments. This will allow you to find out which of the proposed RAM disks are best adapted for the 64-bit environment, because in the future it will be necessary.

Dataram RAMDisk

There are not many settings in the program, but you can download and save the image to disk at startup or shutdown. The maximum disk size is 3240 MB. The program allows you to create only one virtual disk partition.

SoftPerfect RAM Disk

The program allows you to install several RAMdisks. The program does its job well, all the necessary settings are available. However, the program is paid and will work without restrictions for only 30 days. Then it will refuse to start and demand money.

qSoft RAMDisk Enterprise

Finally, let’s look at the version from qSoft. This program is the most functional of all offered. Versions for 32- and 64-bit systems are available separately. The number of settings is quite large. By default, everything is configured as needed - you just need to specify the desired size of the virtual disk. In addition, you can set a dynamic partition size, which will increase automatically if there is not enough space on it.

Test stand

Motherboard – Asus M4A88T-V Evo
Processor – AMD Athlon II 635
Memory – Samsung DDR3 PC3-10600

The remaining components of the computer do not play a special role. The system operated at standard frequencies and did not overclock. Before the test, the BIOS settings were reset to factory settings.

RAMDisk 32-bit.

Let's start comparing the performance of all three programs in 32-bit mode. The operating system is the time-tested Windows XP. Disks with a size of approximately 250-300 MB were created, after which their speed was measured. For this purpose, we used benchmarks used for testing hard drives (after all, RAMDisk in this case acts as a regular hard drive). ATTO and CrystalDiskMark were selected from the tests. The HD Tune test, which communicates directly with devices (hard drives and SSDs) and not with the partitions on them, was not suitable for this experiment. Therefore, HD Tune simply did not detect two of the three discs. All disks were formatted in the FAT32 file system with a standard cluster size.

So, the test results (clickable).

The ATTO benchmark, which reports on the performance of devices on different cluster sizes, showed an unusual picture. The speed first grew with increasing cluster size (which is natural for ordinary media), and then, reaching a peak at 128 and 256 KB, it began to fall (which is already quite strange). Moreover, this peak actually corresponds to the maximum speed of the RAM disk. This is confirmed by other tests. It is likely that the algorithms used by the program are optimized for conventional hard drives and SSDs and begin to work not quite correctly at ultra-high speeds typical of RAM.

RAMDisk Enterprise from qSoft took the lead. It outperformed SoftPerfect by 5% and Dataram by 10%. Moreover, the main gap occurs in areas with a small cluster size, which is typical for real operations, for example, when loading the operating system or launching applications.

The second test, CrystalDiskMark, also showed interesting results (clickable).

Here the first place is again for RAMDisk Enterprise. In linear read and write operations, it outperformed its competitors by about the same margin as in the previous test. But at a small block size the gap increased many times over. Here RAMDisk Enterprise has no competition; performance on 4 KB blocks dropped only three times. In contrast, Dataram Ramdisk showed an almost tenfold drop in performance compared to linear parameters. SoftPerfect showed an intermediate result.

RAMDisk 64-bit

Now let's move on to testing in a 64-bit environment, which is Windows 7 64-bit. During the experiment, it will be clearly visible how well the programs are adapted to the new operating system. It should be noted that while Dataram Ramdisk and SoftPerfect have a single distribution for both versions of the operating system, qSoft RAMDisk Enterprise is supplied separately for 32- and 64-bit systems. Let's see if this gives any advantage.

And again the qSoft product is ahead. Moreover, on a 64-bit system its gap from its analogues has only grown. By the way, RAMDisk Enterprise is the only program among those presented, which in the 64-bit version showed an almost complete absence of dips or combs (the only graph in which the increase in speeds looks approximately as it should).

Which is better - 64-bit vs 32-bit

Now let's compare the performance of the leader of our today's test on platforms of different bit sizes.

As you can see, the speed when switching to a 64-bit system increases by about one and a half times. Other programs also showed an increase, but it was not as significant. Thus, we can safely say that RAMDisk Enterprise is the best adapted for new systems.

In conclusion, I note that the programs were also tested on an overclocked computer. Just overclocking the RAM with decreasing timings and increasing frequencies can increase the performance of a Ram disk by about 5-10%. Overclocking the processor also gives some gain, which, combined with overclocking the RAM, can give a gain of about 15%.

Personally, I'm not a fan of overclocking. In addition, a 15% increase in the virtual disk will have a slight impact on the overall speed of the system, which does not access it very often.

As a result, RAMDisk Enterprise is not only the fastest Ram disk of the three programs, but also the most flexible, functional and reliable tool. In my experiments with such disks, I recommend using this particular program.

How to optimize Windows performance by using RAM -disk – a virtual disk created by third-party software that functions due to excess RAM? Below we will talk about carrying out basic operations for the purpose of such optimization. Let's take a closer look at how to create RAM-disk and transfer the contents of system folders to it "Temp" .

1. Creating a RAM disk

To create RAM-disk in our case the program will be used. It was chosen because of its ease of use, support for the Russian language, but most importantly - due to the ability to save data RAM-disk on hard drive. Let us remind you that RAM can work with data within one session of working with a computer. After the system is rebooted, stored on RAM-disk data disappears. To solve this problem, the developers of some programs to implement RAM-disk equip their products with mechanisms for saving data to a special file on the hard drive. When the system is restarted, the saved data is accordingly retrieved and takes its place on RAM-disk. The ability to save data is an optional condition for a program that implements on a Windows system RAM-disk, if the latter will be used only for storing temporary files (contents of “Temp” folders, browser cache and temporary data of other programs) . But if on RAM The disk will store portable programs, profiles and working directories of browsers, other programs and games; the presence of a function for saving data on the hard drive will be of fundamental importance.

– a paid product, at the time of writing the article the cost is $29 . But the developers of this program offer to test the fully functional trial version for free for a whole month. This period is more than enough to understand the effectiveness of such optimization and, accordingly, make a choice - RAM-disk or SSD .

So, let's download and launch the program. Add a new one RAM -disk.

Fill out the creation form RAM-disk. First of all, we indicate the disk size. Important: this size should not exceed the unused remainder of RAM at the time of maximum computer load . It is advisable not to leave the system with less than 6 GB . Next, select any of the free letters for the disk and set the file system format NTFS. Click "OK".

Returning to the main window , click menu "Image" and choose "Create an image". Creating and connecting a format image IMG - this is the very mechanism for ensuring data safety RAM -disk mentioned above. It is in this image will periodically record data so that it is available after Windows restarts, and not just during the current session. What, as mentioned, will happen when implementing RAM-disk programs without support for a data saving mechanism.

In the column you need to write the path to image file – specify the disk partition, folder and come up with a name for the file. If it is planned that RAM- the disk will be used to store some important data, respectively, image file must be created on a non-system disk partition. In the column "Size" indicate the same size that was set for the RAM -disk. For graph "Format", again, select the value "NTFS". Click "OK".

We will receive a notification that the image has been created.

If in the future RAM - the disk will be destroyed for some reason and will take away valuable information; it can be retrieved by mounting the newly created one IMG -image – either with the help of the , or through any other program that works with this format.

So, RAM -disk is created, IMG -the image has been created, now they need to be tied to each other and configured. We return to the main program window. Here in the context menu on RAM-disk select .

A setup window will open. In the column we write, accordingly, the path to the newly created image IMG . Next is an important point - you must check the box "Save content" . Click the button below "Additional".

Below in the column we set the time period through which the data RAM-disc must be written to IMG-image. In our case, the optimal option was chosen - every half hour. If on RAM- the disk is not supposed to store particularly important data; you can set a longer interval. In any case, before turning off or restarting the computer, all data will be saved in IMG-image. Click "OK".

Next, let's return to the previous settings window. Click here below "OK", then in the window that appears, confirm the application of the parameters and launch the associated remount operation RAM-disk.

That's all. will automatically boot with Windows and run in the background RAM-disk. At any time, the program can be found in the system tray to change settings RAM-disk or not at all delete it. It can be removed very easily– using the option, respectively, in the context menu.

Intentional deletion RAM-disk does not result in the destruction of the associated IMG-image. It will still be in its place until it is removed manually. From periodic automatic saving of data to IMG-we can refuse the image and save data manually only if necessary. For these purposes in the window there is a special button.

Created RAM -the drive will now appear in Windows Explorer as a regular drive. The possibilities for its use, in principle, can be anything, as long as everything happens within the framework of the allocated volume. On RAM-disks with small volumes usually redirect storage cache (or entire profiles) browsers, save paths and other game data, working directories of bulky programs. But first of all RAM-disk send folders storing temporary Windows files - "Temp". On the performance of the disk on which system folders are stored "Temp", the performance of both third-party programs and Windows as a whole partly depends.

2. Transferring the “Temp” system folders to the RAM disk

Folders "Temp" located on the system disk along the path:

- C:\Windows\Temp,

- C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp.

Their transfer to RAM-disk is done by editing the values ​​of Windows environment variables. For some system processes the company Microsoft provided a standard mechanism for changing values ​​- in particular, changing the storage location of folder contents "Temp".

First, create a folder "Temp" on the destination disk - on RAM -disk. Next, press the keys Win + Pause. In the system settings window on the left, select additional options. In the window that opens, go down and press the button "Environment Variables...".

The upper half of the window is responsible for the user profile environment variables. Editing values "TEMP" And "TMP" we will change the folder path "Temp" as part of the catalog "AppData". Select a value "TEMP" and press the button "Change".

We carry out the same operation with the value "TMP", specify the same folder path "Temp" on RAM -disk.

Next, we move to the lower half of the variable environment window - to system variables. Here we also select "TEMP" And "TMP", these are the values ​​corresponding to the folder "Temp" in the catalog "Windows". Select the values ​​one by one "TEMP" And "TMP" and for each of them press the button "Change". Instead of the current path, write a folder "Temp" on RAM -disk. In the end it should work 4 changed values.

After editing the environment variable values reboot Windows.

Moving folder contents "Temp" on RAM The disk also makes access to them convenient. Which will come in handy for cases of allocation under RAM-small volume disk RAM. Folders "Temp" It is necessary to periodically clean them, because they often grow to incredible volumes. You can also clear folders "Temp" according to their previous path on disk WITH to free up extra space on it.

Using the special programs discussed in this review, you can create a virtual disk in your computer’s RAM that works much faster than a regular HDD, so that any tasks that intensively use the disk will be performed on it several times faster.

RAM disks were used back in the days of MS-DOS and allowed you to work on a computer without a hard drive with just a floppy disk. Using the RAMDRIVE.SYS file, a small virtual disk was created in memory, on which the user stored files until the computer was turned off, and then copied them back to the floppy disk. This made it possible to save the resource of floppy disks, and also increased the speed of operations on the computer.

Many years have passed, and RAM disks are being returned again, but this time, instead of floppy disks, they are used to protect SSDs, while at the same time, as before, increasing the performance of the computer.

Increased productivity

RAM disks can be used for different purposes, but maximum growth can be achieved only if the following conditions are met: after placing files on the RAM disk, the computer will still have a few gigabytes of free memory; When processing data, the disk must be intensively used, otherwise the performance gain will not be noticeable.

Most often, RAM drives are used for the following tasks: compiling heavy programs; launching a web server; launching games with large textures; loading large projects into the application, working with images of virtual machines. Although these tasks are indeed often mentioned when discussing RAM disks, not all of them benefit from using a RAM drive; read more about this in the testing section.

Some of the above examples are not relevant for the average user, but on a home computer you can also use RAM disks to speed up some everyday operations (launching programs, games, opening files). The increase will be especially noticeable if the system has a regular HDD instead of an SSD.

It makes sense to transfer games only if the PC has at least 8 GB of RAM installed, and sometimes all 16, otherwise, after copying the game, there is no free RAM left to run it. The gain should be noticeable only when running the most demanding games (Crysis, Metro 2033), in particular with high-resolution textures installed. You should not expect an increase in FPS, only the level loading time will decrease. In the case of Steam games, you can use the utility to move games to any selected folder. Gamers who record HD gaming video without compression may also notice the benefit.

SSD storage

RAM disks are also becoming popular as a means to reduce SSD wear. To do this, the swap file, the directory of temporary files, as well as some programs are transferred to a virtual disk, thus reducing the number of accesses to the solid-state disk. Some RAM disk creation programs even include options to make these settings easier.

Of the frequently used programs on RAM, it is advisable to move the browser first. If it opens with a large number of tabs left over from the previous session, it will start to launch much faster. Also, running from a RAM disk will extend the life of the SSD, since browsers intensively use the cache, which in this case will be located in memory. The easiest way to install a browser on a RAM disk is to copy the folder with the Portable version of the program to a virtual partition. This way you won’t have to manually enter the paths to the required directories in the browser.

Other benefits of RAM disks

Using RAM disks brings other benefits:
— Noise and PC heating are reduced to a small extent due to less frequent use of the HDD
- Reduces disk fragmentation by ensuring temporary files and browser cache are never written to the physical disk
— There will be more space on your hard drive: temporary files that programs sometimes do not delete will not accumulate on the computer.

There is another interesting use for RAM disks - the ability to place RAM drives in memory unused on 32-bit systems. As you know, Windows 32-bit can use no more than ~3.5 GB of memory, and if more is installed on the computer, then the memory simply “disappears”. The programs Gavotte Ram Disk (more about setting up) and SuperSpeed ​​RamDisk Plus (this program was not considered in the review due to the lack of a free version) can use memory that Windows does not see as a RAM disk.

Programs for creating RAM disks

Before moving on to a review of the programs, two clarifications need to be made. First, only free programs were considered. Second, the Bond Disc and Gavotte Ram Disk utilities were not included in the review because they did not run on Windows 8 64-bit.

One of the simplest and most understandable programs. Allows you to create RAM disks up to 4 GB in size (limitation of the free version), but only in a single copy.

Dataram can initialize the RAM disk when the system starts, and optionally loads any specified image into it.

Autosave can be set for any period of time (five minutes by default), and you can separately specify whether the disk will be saved when the computer is turned off. Manual saving is also available, which can be done at any time.
After overwriting the image, the previous copy of the disk is not deleted, but is saved with the .bak extension.

In the program settings there is an option to create a TEMP directory on the RAM drive, but the system paths for storing temporary files do not change and applications still use the regular TEMP folder. Therefore, to transfer temporary files to the RAM disk, the TEMP and TMP variables will need to be edited manually in the My Computer settings System Properties->Environment Variables.

The options on the last tab of the program mainly concern functionality related to extending the life of the SSD. If the virtual disk will be used exclusively for storing temporary files and reducing system access to the solid-state drive, then settings such as erasing the contents of memory when exiting the program and not storing the previous copy of RAMDisk will be very useful.

The disadvantages of Dataram RAMDisk include the banner that appears on the screen when the program is launched, and the already specified limitation on the size of the RAM drive of 4 GB.

ImDisk has a somewhat confusing interface compared to its colleagues, and it is not clear why they left it this way, because some options could have simply been removed.

The program has only a console version of the executable file, and to work with the graphical interface you will need to open the Control Panel, where the ImDisk icon is located (however, you can always make a shortcut for it on the desktop using Windows).

The difference between ImDisk and some other utilities is that this program allows you to create any number of virtual disks (as long as there are free drive letters).

ImDisk was originally intended to emulate floppy drives, optical drives and hard drives, but it can also be used to create RAM drives. To do this, you need to specify the path to store the image file, specify its size, select the Harddisk disk type and do not forget to check the Copy image file to memory option.

The last option means that the image file will be loaded into memory and all operations will be performed with it there. Thus, the original image will not be updated unless all changes are manually synchronized.

There are both pros and cons to manual synchronization: you will need to use the Save image function yourself, but this can only be done when you really need to update the file, and this way the computer will not periodically slow down when dumping the contents of memory into the file.

After creating a RAM disk, some of its properties can be changed: for example, increase the size or set the Read Only label.

The main disadvantage of ImDisk is that the program cannot start a RAM disk automatically when you turn on the computer and you have to create it manually each time.

The OSFMount utility clearly has some kind of relationship with ImDisk, which is noticeable by the presence of absolutely identical options in the programs and also in the interface. However, there are still some differences between the utilities.

OSFMount has a separate executable file, the interface is slightly simplified and more emphasis is placed on working with RAM disks.
The utility can also be used to mount common images (ISO, NRG, VMDK, etc.).

No settings related to autosave have been added, but when you disconnect the disk, the utility asks whether it is worth updating the contents of the image. This feature can be combined with manual saving, which remains in place.

The only complaint about OSFMount, besides the lack of automatic creation of a RAM drive when you turn on the computer, as in the case of ImDisk, is that when disconnecting disks and some other operations, the program freezes for several seconds, and, as the Task Manager shows, during this At the moment, the contents of memory are not copied to the hard drive, and it is not clear what the program is doing.

After working with SoftPerfect RAM Disk, I was left with the impression that this is one of the few free programs whose interface is being more or less brought into line with the requirements of 2012.

As with other applications, SoftPerfect Ram Disk is generally designed to work with proprietary image formats (SVIs), and in particular can be used to create RAM disks.

After starting the program, the main window displays the amount of free RAM, which simplifies the creation of a RAM disk, since it is immediately clear what the limit on its maximum size is.

To access some program options, you must first create an image and save it on a physical disk. This will enable the option to autosave the contents of the RAM disk to a file.

SoftPerfect RAM Disk allows you to create any number of virtual disks without software size restrictions.

Among the useful options it is also worth noting: compression of data on disk; creating a RAM disk at system startup; cleaning the disk when unmounting; autosave after a specified period of time; editing the path to the Temp folder; export/import of all settings for disks.

This utility is installed and uninstalled almost like real hardware, through the Windows device manager by manually adding a driver in the settings wizard.

After this, RAM disk B: 1 MB in size appears in the system, and to change its parameters you must either download a separate executable file from the developer’s website, or each time open the properties of the virtual device in the Windows device manager. Instructions for installing the program and a direct link to the configurator can be found in the CHM file.

QSoft RAMDrive can create only one RAM disk in the system, but its size is not limited by software. There is an option in the settings to automatically change the size of the RAM drive, but when using it, the disk volume is 256 MB and does not increase after the free space runs out (probably due to incompatibility of the software with Windows 8 64 bit).

RAMDrive can work with images, load them when the system starts and save the content when the driver is unloaded, at certain intervals or by a timer.

The site states that the Russian-language version of RAMDisk “Enterprise” is free only when run on localized Russian-language systems, but the use of English-language Windows 8 during tests confirms the opposite. Perhaps it is enough for the system locale settings to be set to Russian.

An important clarification: QSoft RAMDrive did not take part in testing, since the program generated an error when creating a high-capacity RAM drive (1-2 GB disks were used for testing). Apparently, this is due to poor compatibility of the program and Windows 8 64 bit.

Testing

Of the seven free programs selected, for the reasons stated above, only four made it to testing. Initially, it was planned to use several synthetic benchmarks to test them, but during testing it turned out that many of the test programs work with disks at a very low level and simply do not see RAM disks. That is why basic information about the performance of RAM drives was collected using CrystalDiskMark. Testing was carried out on a computer with 6 GB of memory and an Intel processor [email protected] GHz

Synthetics
CrystalDiskMark shows highly repeatable results, although on some RAM disks it produces two separate sets of numbers that differ by about two hundred megabytes. Apparently, this is explained by the use of several memory sticks with different speeds in the computer. The diagrams show the best result.

CrystalDiskMark (sequential operations, MB/s, more is better):

CrystalDiskMark (4K, MB/s, bigger is better):

As you can see, the performance indicators of RAM disks are noticeably different, and due to the fact that the priority when working with them is read speed, the undisputed winner in this category was left for further tests - SoftPerfect RAM Disk, which showed excellent results in both sequential and in random reading (as well as random writing).

The HD Tune benchmark was able to recognize only one of the virtual disks, and it incorrectly reported its size, so it was not possible to determine which one. However, this test can compare typical access times and CPU load.

As for the CPU load, for the hard drive according to HD Tune it was 4%, for the SSD - 7%, and for the RAM disk an error was received, since the result was minus one percent.

Program launch time

After testing, it was known that VLC is one of the longest-running “daily” programs, so a comparison of startup speed was carried out only with its participation.

VLC startup time (seconds, less is better):

Quite predictably, there was virtually no difference between a cold start from a RAM drive and a hot start from any media, since in both cases the program actually started from RAM. As for performance, the RAM disk was twice as fast as even the SSD, and as already mentioned, this time was very close to the time of hot startup, that is, there was simply nowhere to improve it further.

Other tasks

Archiving in zip (fast compression, seconds):

Testing performance when creating an archive showed that the “bottleneck” in such operations at the moment is the processor, and not the hard drive, since even with the minimum possible zip compression, a 1 GB file was archived in about 40 seconds on all disks.

To be fair, it is worth noting that in the zip store mode (simply put, without compression), in which the file is not compressed, but only copied to the archive, the difference between different drives became obvious. The only problem is that in real conditions such tasks are very rare.

Archiving in zip (no compression, seconds, less is better):

We left two tests for last in which no benefits were identified from using a RAM disk.

Launching Ubuntu in VirtualBox (the image was located on a HDD, SSD and RAM disk) showed that the type of drive used does not affect the OS boot speed (~40 sec +/-1 sec), and everything is again limited by the speed of the CPU.

Loading times for game levels were simulated using popular benchmarks. Considering that individual tests in them take about ten seconds to load, and sometimes more, the comparison seemed appropriate, but RAM disks did not improve this indicator. Apparently, everything once again boils down to the fact that the main load falls on the processor, and the amount of loaded data both in these benchmarks and in real games is not so great that the difference in speed is noticeable.

Used in testing: Heaven DX11 Benchmark, 3DMark 06, 3DMark 11, Call Of Pripyat Benchmark.

Which is better, SSD or RAM disk?

Price
In terms of one gigabyte, SSD is cheaper. Starting from 500 UAH, you can buy 16 GB of RAM for a PC, but for the same money you can get a good 64 GB SSD, and if you want to save money, then a 32 GB drive is easy to find for 400 UAH.

RAM disk
A RAM disk, by and large, has only one advantage - speed that is several times (sometimes an order of magnitude) higher than the speed of an SSD, but this potential cannot be revealed in all tasks.

Disadvantages: the need for additional configuration of some programs; small volume; volatility (the contents of a RAM disk can be periodically written to an image file, but this is not a complete replacement for non-volatile memory cells).

SSD
Solid state drives speed up all programs installed on the drive, including the operating system.

Flaws
Under intense loads, the performance of the SSD will be lower and in this case it will wear out faster.

As you can see, in certain situations, RAM disks can not only compare with SSDs in performance, but also noticeably outperform them. If you are faced with a choice: SSD or additional memory, once again weigh all the pros and cons of each solution.