Creating a ram disk in windows 10. OSFMount: support for third-party images of various formats

Not all personal computer users are aware that in random access memory you can create virtual partition and store temporary files in it. Such an unusual storage medium is called RAM Disk and allows not only to increase the overall performance of the system, but also to speed up the work of individual applications. Moreover, a virtual disk has other advantages that allow it to stand out even against the background of an SSD.

In this article, you will learn what results can be achieved by allocating just a small part of the RAM to the RAM Disk. In addition, here will be considered programs that allow you to create virtual partitions in just a few clicks. But for starters small digression into the past.

A bit of history

Surprisingly, RAM Disk is far from new technology. They were used back in the days of MS-DOS and allowed you to use a computer without a hard drive. It was enough to create a small virtual partition in RAM, throw files into it with external media and feel free to work with them. Then, when it was time to turn off the computer, the information was copied to a floppy disk and stored on it.

Thanks to such a simple manipulation, it was possible to increase the speed of operations several times over. In addition, floppy disks, when using a virtual partition, were needed only as a temporary storage of information, which made it possible to significantly extend their service life. In principle, all these advantages are relevant today, but with some changes.

Performance Boost

Of course, now no one will use a RAM Disk as a replacement for a conventional hard drive or SSD. And the point here is that modern programs, and even more so the games stored on your hard drive simply will not fit entirely into the RAM. However, no one is stopping you from transferring to virtual media individual files, selecting those that are most frequently accessed by an application.

In this case, several nuances should be taken into account, otherwise, by making a RAM disk on your computer, you will not increase performance, but, on the contrary, worsen it. That's what in question:

• Allocate a portion of RAM to RAM Disk only if you have at least 6 GB of RAM left after that (at least 8 GB of RAM is recommended for gaming PCs).
• Transfer only those files to the virtual partition that the application accesses very often.
• Do not try to put important information on the RAM Disk. system files or drivers. By doing this, you can disrupt the operation of the operating system.

Also, do not forget that when you turn off or restart the computer, all information stored in the virtual partition will be moved to the hard drive. If your power goes out unexpectedly, you may lose important data.

SSD longevity

Another reason why people are increasingly starting to use RAM disks is the desire to extend the lifespan. SSD services. The fact is that the less often files are read from a solid state drive, the less likely it is that it will fail. But RAM has a much larger margin of safety, so it is logical to transfer the most active programs, constantly processing any data.

An example is Internet browsers. These applications are constantly transferring various files into the cache, and then, as needed, retrieve them from there. Because of this, the disk, whether it is an SSD or HDD, is under load all the time and its service life is reduced. If you transfer the browser cache to a RAM disk, the entire load will fall on the RAM, which is not so terrible.

Softperfect RAM Disk

Virtual media is also widely used because of its ease of use. Almost any user, even without any special skills, can download a special application and use it to create a RAM Disk. Therefore, the most popular programs, which just allow you to do this. And the first one is Softperfect RAM Disk.

The application allows you to create several virtual disks and also displays actual value free RAM. In addition, the program has a function to automatically save files from the RAM Disk to the hard drive after the computer is turned off. Unfortunately, you can only use the application for free for 30 days. After that, you will have to buy a Softperfect RAM disk key from the developers. With it, you activate the utility and can use it without restrictions.

Dataram RAM Disk

Perhaps one of the best programs for modern operating systems. It allows you to create a RAM Disk for Win 10, but is still suitable for older versions of Windows. The application has a simple and intuitive interface, as well as the ability to set auto save information stored on virtual media. For example, you can set the program to flush data to your hard drive every 30 minutes, so you don't have to worry about losing it.

Unfortunately, the free version of the utility only allows you to create virtual media up to 4 GB. To remove this limitation, you will have to purchase Dataram RAM from the developers disk key. Another disadvantage of the free version of the program is an advertising banner that periodically appears on the screen. In other matters, no one bothers you to download the "cracked" RAM Disk from Dataram and get rid of the above problems.

ImDisk

The main difference between ImDisk and its closest competitors is that this program allows you to create not only disks in RAM, but also virtual CD drives for reading images. This allows you to use one utility instead of several.

There is, however, a negative point that appeared due to the multifunctionality of the program. The ImDisk interface is quite confusing, so it will take you some time to figure it out. However, with a little getting used to, you will find that the application allows you to create an unlimited number of virtual media.

It's also worth mentioning that ImDisk is a free program. Simply put, you do not have to pay a round sum of money for its use or rummage through specialized forums in search of a "crack".

Creating a RAM disk

And now it's time to move from theory to practice and figure out how to create virtual partitions using the example of a "cracked" Softperfect RAM Disk. This operation looks like this:

• Run the program and click on the big green plus in its main menu.
• Specify in the corresponding field the size that you are going to allocate for RAM Disk.
• Check the "As a removable disk" box. In that Windows case will not create unnecessary system files such as recycle bins on the virtual disk.
• Choose format file system your RAM Disk. It is recommended to specify NTFS.
• Click OK.

After that, the virtual disk will be created, and you can safely use it. By the way, in other programs this operation is performed in almost the same way, so, as you can see, there is nothing complicated in this.

What should be moved to RAM disk

And finally, let's consider what files and folders should be transferred to a virtual partition to speed up the operation of the operating system and individual applications:

• Browser cache. This is especially true for the Internet browser. Google Chrome and other utilities on the Chromium engine.
• Folders "TEMP" and "TMP". Windows stores various temporary files in them, so the faster they are loaded from disk, the faster your operating system will start working.
• All kinds of files textures, models and other objects in those games where it is supported. Thanks to this, you will significantly reduce the time required, for example, to load levels or move between locations.

You can also place on virtual media individual programs that you use very often. Try this and you'll be surprised how much faster they start working.

Creating a virtual disk in RAM

Everyone knows that weak point in computer performance have always been and remain hard disks, And SSD drives also do not shine with the speed of work. All programs and files that you open on your computer are read from hard drive, the only exceptions are cached data and some system data that are read from RAM (they were previously read from the HDD). And accordingly, the launch speed of such files and programs is relatively small.

Today, I will tell you how you can run any program right from the RAM.

Why you need to run programs from RAM

This will significantly speed up the launch of programs and speed up the work of programs that intensively use the HDD.

How to do it

With the help of a special program, we will create virtual disk, whose data will be physically located in RAM, which is many times faster than a hard disk.

Download and install the program Dataram RAM Disk, we will not dwell on this point, there should not be any difficulties.

We launch the installed program and get to the first tab with settings:

On this tab, we indicate the volume of the future virtual HDD. Specify file system, and move on to the next tab.

On the second tab, you need to check the boxes “ Load Disk Image at Startup" And " Save Disk Image on Shutdown“, this will allow you to save the contents of the disk on the HDD upon exit and load it at startup, respectively, the paths of the images must match. If you wish, you can set autosave by interval. Let's go to the last tab.

Here, we need to check the boxes “ Do not create backup file when saving disk image" And " Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystems“, this will prevent you from backing up the old disk image before burning a new one, and will allow you not to compress the image. And in the first paragraph of this window, you can set the HDD initialization interval after the system starts. Click Start RAM Disk.

That's all, the creation of a virtual HDD is finished, and this is how it will look in my computer:

Note : if you have new disk did not appear, and the program “stopped” on checking virtual disk(final stage), you need to close the program and restart the computer. If after this there is still no new disk, then you need to go to the computer management (right-click on the “My Computer” icon => “Management”), then go to “Disk Management”. Windows should display a message about the partition found that is not initialized and ask you to initialize - do it. If there was no message, then find the new disk in the list of disks and start the initialization manually. Then create a partition in it for the entire volume of the disk, followed by formatting in FAT32. Now everything will be OK.

Testing the physical HDD and Virtual

Let's test the read speed from a real HDD and a virtual one.

Real HDD test result

Test result of virtual HDD in RAM

It can be seen from the above result that the average HDD read speed is 70 Mb/s, and read speed from virtual is 1527 Mb / s, which is almost 22 times more than with HDD. I think the comments are redundant.

I installed OPERA 12 in this section as on a USB flash drive, that is, portable, Total Commander, Photoshop, and a few more programs. Now they work faster :)

This application can be very useful tool to climb it WEB servers, or rather, placing a CMS on it, which we use text files as a database. By placing such a CMS (for example, CMS xDroid) in the computer's RAM, its speed will increase significantly, and when high loads, will be able to act as a very high-performance system, which simply will not be equal.

Good luck with your experiments, install anything there, and these programs or games (if they fit) will work faster.

Chic Free computer program from a reliable and trusted manufacturer ... of processors and video cards (AMD), called Radeon RAMDisk, will allow you to do beyond fast disk in RAM, which will work many, many times faster than your hard drive (HDD) and even SSD-disk.

RAMDisk - fast disk in RAM

The scope of such a high-speed virtual disk is so wide that the hair stands on end when you start to think. For example, I installed a portable browser on it and, as a result, it hurt my jaw that fell on the table from the results of the experiment - it began to really fly like crazy.

But you can still “throw” system temporary files, programs or their profiles into it ...

In fact, there are already quite a few programs that can mount such disks in RAM, but I especially liked the one described in this article for its simplicity and clarity.

Work speed

You now understand everything without extra words just by looking at the screenshots. So here's the sad speed of my decrepit HDD...

…and this system SSD(already more cheerful indicators) ...

...and here is the speed of the drive created in RAM (hold on to your panties)...

I described the program for measuring the speed of disks and the methodology in the article at this link.

How?

Everything is very simple and understandable. Any RAM works by itself much faster than any disks, and add a multi-threaded high-speed data transfer bus with a couple of channels - and here we get the results shown above.

Nuances and warnings

• I strongly advise owners of at least 4GB of RAM to start thinking about speeding up their computer using RAMDisk. Otherwise, you will get the opposite effect. The program will cut off a noticeable piece of RAM needed for stable operation systems.
• Before transferring something important and systemic to this virtual disk, make sure that you correctly and fully understand the transfer technology. Be sure to make system restore points and backups before experimenting.
• When you turn off the computer, our virtual disk also turns off, or rather, completely evaporates. Don't worry - if the program is configured correctly, all data from the disk is written to the real physical disk. When the system starts, they are again written to the automatically remounted RAMDisk.
• At sudden shutdown electricity, the data will not have time to be written to a physical disk and will be completely lost somewhere among your loud curses at electricians. That is why this method can be used completely painlessly only in laptops or computers with a UPS (source uninterruptible power supply).
• When using this computer acceleration technology, you will literally lose a couple of seconds when you turn off your computer and the same amount when you start it.
• Simply “throw” system or profile folders into this magic disk will not be correct. You also need to tell the system the correct new path to them.
• Keeping simple files (photos, videos, music…) in RAMDisk is extremely stupid, sorry. For this there are others dimensionless places.

As you can see, there are not only advantages, but also some disadvantages of using a drive in RAM.

Why operating system manufacturers do not use this feature and do not give us convenient built-in tools for this remains a mystery. May give birth in a few years, as with adjustment color temperature monitor.

I dragged something on with the preface - you are already cowardly with impatience, and here I am blah-blah-blah ...

Radeon RAM Disk

You can download this free miracle program from the link at the end of the article, but for now ...

Program installation

A couple of days "run in" 2GB of RAM as additional disk- I delete it and already with screenshots I make it in the amount of 3GB. I don’t play games, I practically don’t use programs that are demanding on computer resources, a billion tabs I don’t keep them open at the same time - I think that the free (remaining) 5 GB will be enough for me for a comfortable daily work behind a laptop.

Go…

If you leave a check mark here, the disk creation program in the RAM will immediately start. Perhaps at the first start such an extortionate window will appear - shoot it like a rabid dog ...

...and go to settings...

This is the first settings tab - we set the size of the future disk here (in the free version, this size is limited to 4GB for third-party memory and 6GB for proprietary AMD Radeon™ Memory.

"Create TEMP Directory" - check the box if you plan to store system temporary files here (I do not recommend doing this yet, because additional gestures are required, which I will describe in another article.).

"Set Disk Label" - a mandatory checkbox (we call our disk and assign an unoccupied letter to it).

In the “Image File to use For new Disk or to Load exiting image” column, specify the storage location for the drive image that is created when the computer is turned off (left by default).

If in the “Load Options” section, put a dot on “Create a new disk”, a new disk will always be launched when the computer starts. "Load the specified saved image" - will resurrect the image saved when the machine was turned off. And in order to save it, you need to check the box “Save Disk Image at Shutdown” in the “Save Options” section.

Not confused yet? It is better to re-read a couple of times, but do everything right - any mistake or inattention can cost you dearly. Who does not want to delve into it - just do everything as in my screenshots - I have tested this setting on a couple of computers several times already and everything works fine.

Remained last tab settings...

"Manually set RAMDisk timeout value" - delayed start at system startup.

"Do not create backup file when saving disk image" - disables the creation of a disk backup if disk saving to a file is enabled.

"Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystem" - do not compress the disk file if it is saved to a disk with the NTFS file system.

"Clear RAMDisk memory on exit" - clearing the contents of the disk at shutdown.

"Do not start RAMDisk when Windows starts" - do not start at system startup ( manual start by clicking on the shortcut).

"Allow Image file to be saved in non System Drivers" - saving an image using third-party drivers.

Drum roll - click on the "Start RAMDisk" button and ... agree with the installation of drivers ...

...formatting the newly minted virtual disk...

Special attention is required here so as not to format the working or even system disk - make sure that the drive letter is correct (or rather, any other letter is displayed, except for working and system "drives"). In short - for sure you, like me, will pop up such an evil window ...

In one of the previous articles, the question of the advisability of creating a virtual disk in RAM was considered. Now it's time to figure out which programs to create RAM Disk better choose. From the whole variety of software, three tools were chosen:

• qSoft RAMDisk Enterprise
• Dataram RAM Disk
• SoftPerfect RAM Disk

In the process of testing with the help of ATTO and CrystalDiskMark benchmarks, speed characteristics created discs. In addition, 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 a 64-bit environment, because in the future it will have to be .

Dataram RAM Disk

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

SoftPerfect RAM Disk

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

qSoft RAMDisk Enterprise

Finally, consider the version of the qSoft company. This program- the most functional of all proposed. Versions for 32- and 64-bit systems are supplied separately. The number of settings is quite large. By default, everything is configured as needed - you just need to specify the desired virtual disk size. In addition, you can set the dynamic size of the partition, which will increase automatically when there is not enough space on it.

test stand

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

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

RAM Disk 32-bit.

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

So, the test results (clickable).

The ATTO benchmark, which provides information about the operation of devices on different cluster sizes, showed an unusual picture. With increasing cluster size, the speed first grew (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 really corresponds top speed RAM disk. This is confirmed by other tests as well. Probably, the algorithms by which the program works are optimized for conventional hard drives and SSDs and start to work not quite correctly at the ultra-high speeds typical for RAM.

Leadership was taken by RAMDisk Enterprise from qSoft. It outperformed SoftPerfect by 5% and Dataram by 10%. Moreover, the main gap falls on areas with a small cluster size, which is typical for real operations, for example, when loading an operating system or launching applications.

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

Here again, the first place belongs to RAMDisk Enterprise. During operations linear reading and records, he outperformed competitors with about the same difference as in the previous test. But on small size block gap has increased many times. Here RAMDisk Enterprise is out of competition, performance on 4 KB blocks fell only three times. In contrast, Dataram Ramdisk showed almost a tenfold drop in performance compared to linear parameters. SoftPerfect showed an intermediate result.

RAM Disk 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 seen 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 it gives any advantage.

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

Which is better - 64-bit vs 32-bit

And now let's compare the performance of the leader of our today's test on platforms of different bit depths.

As you can see, when switching to a 64-bit system, the speed increases by about one and a half times. Other programs also showed an increase, but it is not so significant. Thus, we can safely say that RAMDisk Enterprise is best adapted to 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 the frequency 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 supporter of overclocking. In addition, a 15% increase in virtual disk will have little effect on the overall speed of a system that does not access it so often.

Eventually, 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.

Exist different types disks: hard, removable, virtual and others. The latter are emulated by special programs. One of their varieties is the RAM disk. What kind of drive is this and in what cases is it useful? What programs can be used to create such a disk?

What is a RAM disk and what is it used for?

A RAM disk is a virtual drive that is actually created within the PC's random access memory (RAM), but is perceived by the system as normal local disk on which you can save any kind of information. This trick is resorted to by device owners with large volume"RAM", part of which is simply not used.

Why do we need such a virtual disk if it is possible to save all data on a regular hard HDD or SSD? The fact is that the RAM disk, being the physical part of the RAM, is much faster than any of the hard drives. The main purpose of creating a RAM disk in this way is to increase the speed of work on a PC.

The speed of reading and writing data from the hard disk is lower than that of a virtual RAM drive

Table: advantages and disadvantages of creating a RAM disk

What data can be transferred to a RAM disk

Since the data from the RAM disk disappears when the PC is turned off, these drives most often store temporary files (cookies, browsing history, temporary files of the system itself in the temp folder, etc.). However, some utilities get around this drawback: when the device is turned off, they save data on a regular hard drive in special file, and when the system is restarted, they return the information to its original place - the RAM disk. This feature is usually available in paid versions programs.

Users also often place portable programs and a swap file on them if, for example, some utility does not want to work without it, and there is no way to store the file on a regular hard drive.

Create and configure a RAM disk on Windows 10 through the SoftPerfect program

Before creating a RAM disk using any program, including SoftPerfect, it is recommended to make a restore point and prepare installation disk your Windows for possible system crash recovery.

SoftPerfect- paid product from the Australian company of the same name. During the first month, you can use all its options for free without restrictions. After that, it will be necessary to pay for its further functioning. The program is suitable for all the most famous versions of Windows: from XP to "tens". The disadvantage of the utility is that it works only with its own images in SVI format.

You can use it to create a RAM disk that will be used for temporary files as follows:

1. Go to the official SoftPerfect resource for safe boot installer. Click on the green button Download Free trial on right panel to download free test version.
   Click the Download free trial button to download the trial version of SoftPerfect
2. Through the "Downloads" section of the browser, launch the installer and install the program by executing simple steps in the installation wizard: agree to the terms of use and, if desired, select a folder to save the utility.
   Check the box next to I accept the agreement and click Next
3. When the installation is complete, click on Finish in the window where there is a check mark next to Launch SoftPerfect.
   Click on Finish to start the SoftPerfect program
4. On top panel click on the first icon with a big green plus.
   Click on the green plus on the top toolbar
5. There will be a new small window, where you can immediately configure the parameters of the future disk. In the first line, be sure to specify the size of the virtual drive. Under the line you will immediately see available in this moment volume. You can enter this number or any smaller number. Remember that you need to leave 3-4 GB for the system itself for it to work optimally..
   Set the desired disk size and letter for it
6. Select the drive letter from the drop-down menu. With the help of the "Hard Disk Emulation" option, you can create not just logical partition, but a virtual hard disk. However, developers do not recommend enabling this feature, as the disk may end up running slower.
7. If you check the box next to “As a removable disk”, the system will not create Recycled and System partitions on the drive volume information, which are necessary for restoring and storing files in the Recycle Bin.
8. In the "Format" drop-down menu, select the type of drive, in particular, its file system. The optimal and reliable option is NTFS.
   Select the file system format from the drop down menu
9. In the "Create folders" field, if necessary, specify the partitions that should appear on the future disk. The title of each section is written on a new line.
10. Click on the "Advanced" button to go to the next window. In the "Volume Label" field, write the name of the virtual disk as desired. Using the item "Enable data compression on the disk" you can save the amount of its memory, but it is worth remembering that with this activated option speed may not be as high.
    Activate data compression if you want to save disk space
11. After that, double-click on OK in the window with additional and basic parameters. The program will start mounting the disk.
    Wait for the disk mount process to complete
12. Upon completion of the procedure, your first virtual drive "RAM" will appear in the list, which you can already use.
    Your first created disk will appear in the window.
13. We open " Windows Explorer" through standard label"This computer" and see if a new disk has appeared.
    Make sure the drive appears in File Explorer

If you would like to store virtual storage RAM is not temporary, but permanent directories with files, you need to create an ISO disk image in the same program, into which information will be written after turning off the PC, and link it to the created disk:

1. We click on the created RAM disk with the right mouse button. In the small menu, click on last point"Properties".
   Click on "Properties" in the context menu of the RAM disk
2. The same window with options will open that was available when creating the disc. In it, click on the blue icon in the "Path to the image file" field. A small additional window will open, designed to create an image.
   Click the folder icon in the name bar
3. Click on the icon in the form yellow folder in the line "Image file name" - "Windows Explorer" will open. In it, we select the location of the future image, and also enter any name in the corresponding line, for example, RAM2. We click on "Save".
   Select a folder on a regular hard drive where the RAM disk image will be stored
4. We now set the same volume and type of file system as for the disk itself.
   Specify the same options as for the disk itself
5. The item "Save content" will become clickable. We mark it for sure. Let's move on to additional options using the already familiar "Additional" button. next to Cancel.
   Check the box "Keep contents" so that the program transfers data from the disk to the image
6. In the "Image Settings" block, check the box to the left of "Save data to image every, min.". In the field below, specify the period in minutes after which the system will automatically save data on this disk in the corresponding image. Click on OK in advanced and basic settings. This option allows you to prevent data loss when the PC suddenly shuts down or a critical error occurs that causes the entire system to freeze.
   In the last line, set the frequency with which the disk and image will be synchronized
7. In the warning window, click on OK, thereby confirming that we want to remount the disk now.
   Click OK to confirm that you want to make changes to the RAM disk
8. As a result, the newly created disk will be attached to the image, the name and path to which will be indicated in the corresponding column.
   In the column "Image file" there is a path to the file in which the disk data is saved

Video: How to use the SoftPerfect utility

Other Utilities for Creating a RAM Disk

Not only is SoftPerfect able to create a RAM drive on your device, but other paid and free programs. Consider the most famous of them.

Dataram RAMDisk: simple software that does not take a lot of resources

Dataram RAMDisk is a project from the developer of the same name with a simple interface and three installation options: one is free and the other two are paid. The main disadvantage of the utility is the creation of only one disk. You won’t be able to make several media at once, but it is possible to save settings and information after turning off the computer using an image with bak extension. The utility was developed only for Windows: versions 2003 and higher (both 32- and 64-bit) are supported. It can be downloaded from the developer's official resource.

The advantage of the program is also that it does not load the PC hardware, working both in normal and in background. interface on English language, so it may not be suitable for people who do not own it. Another disadvantage of the program is loading advertising banner on the screen when the utility is launched.

The program also has the following features:

• creating a temp directory on a RAM disk to store temporary system files;
• autosave after any specified period of time (default is 5 minutes);
• manual save that can be done at any time.

Video: how to create a RAM drive using a program from Dataram

RAMDisk Enterprise by WinRamTech: automatic increase in RAM-disk size when there is not enough space

RAMDisk Enterprise is a product for creating disks in "RAM" from WinRamTech, the former qSoft. It is suitable for those people who love functional solutions. Volume changeable settings offered by the program is quite extensive. On the official resource of the creator, the utility is available for free download. However, as indicated on the website, the period of this trial version will expire July 1, 2019. You can purchase the full version for $9 or $11 depending on your system's bit depth: 32 and 64 bits respectively.

The application has the following advantages:

1. Synchronization with an image file to save data after turning off the PC.
2. Automatic saving of data in the image.
3. Installation dynamic size disk - if the space on it runs out, the amount of memory will automatically increase.
4. No restrictions on the size of the virtual disk.

Despite a large set of settings, WinRamTech's RAMDisk has its drawbacks:

1. Installing the program and creating a RAM disk is not through a regular installer, but using a special option in the "Device Manager" called "Install an old device." The RAM disk is included in the system as a real driver. For novice users, the installation process may seem too complicated.
2. Create only one disc.
3. Lack of support from developers in the free version.

The RAMDisk program is suitable for almost all versions of Windows: 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, 2008, 2008-R2, 2012, 2012-R2, 2016, 7, 8, 8.1, 10.

ImDisk: a simple utility with an English interface

ImDisk is a small and simple but powerful utility for creating RAM disks from the developer LTRData. It is freely available on the official website of the company. This program was originally intended to emulate disk drives, hard drives and optical drives. However, now the function of creating RAM drives has been added to its set of options.

The application opens through the "Control Panel", however, the program shortcut can also be installed on the "Desktop" for ease of launch.

The key features of ImDisk are as follows:

1. Creation of an unlimited number of disks in the presence of a sufficient amount of "RAM".
2. Storing data in an image file on a regular hard drive.
3. Change settings while using a virtual disk: increase or decrease the size, set the Read Only mark.

The minus of the utility is the manual saving of changes on the RAM disk in the image file. The utility also does not start the disk automatically when the system boots - you have to do it manually. ImDisk is for everyone current versions Windows: 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP.

OSFMount: support for third-party images of various formats

OSFMount is a utility with a simple interface for creating RAM drives, which is very similar to the previous ImDisk tool: similar design and set of options. The difference lies in the fact that in OSFMount the emphasis is on working with RAM disks, and not on emulating drives and hard drives. In addition, the program has its own executable file, through which the application quickly starts.

The main advantages of OSFMount are as follows:

1. Support for disk images from ISO formats, BIN, IMG, DD, 00n, NRG, SDI, AFF, AFM, AFD and VMDK.
2. Mounting images previously created using other programs.
3. Setting the read-only attribute.

Autosaving of the contents of the disk is not supported (only manual), however, when the PC is turned off, the utility asks if the image file needs to be updated. The RAM disk is not automatically created when the computer starts.

The program has the following requirements for the system:

1. Windows version - 7, 8, 10, Server 2008, 2012.
2. Administrator privileges.
3. The minimum RAM is 1 GB.
4. 10 MB free space on the hard drive to install the program.

GiliSoft RAMDisk: original interface and quick view of disk content

GiliSoft RAMDisk- handy utility with an unusual, modern, but understandable interface from the developer company of the same name. At the first start, the utility itself offers to create a RAM drive. You can download this software from the official resource. It is available both paid and free option.

Key Benefits programs from GiliSoft are:

There are some complaints about this small but functional program:

1. An error occurred while writing the image file. However, after that, the utility still saves the image and works stably.
2. Disk size. You need to decide on this parameter right away, since after creation it will no longer be possible to change it - in this case you will have to create a new one.
3. Possible conflicts with other applications that serve hard drives, such as the PerfectDisk defragmenter.

Gilisoft RAMDisk is suitable for Windows 2000, 2003, Vista, XP, 1, 8, 10.

Table: comparison of utilities for creating a RAM disk

A RAM disk is a part of the PC's RAM that is used by the system like a regular hard disk. It allows you to significantly increase the speed of work on the device, if the reason for the low performance is in the hard drive, which is slowly responding to requests. Such a disk, however, can only be used if there is a sufficient amount of "RAM" on the PC - a constant load should be no more than 60%. You can make a RAM disk using special programs. The most popular of them is SoftPerfect. Many of the utilities allow you to get around the main disadvantage of using a RAM drive - deleting data when the computer is turned off. They temporarily save all the contents in a special file - a disk image - on a regular hard drive, and after reclosing put everything back in place.