An ultra-fast disk in the computer's RAM. SoftPerfect program - a tool for creating virtual disks in RAM

Let's try to create a RAM disk linked to an image file.

1. We create the image file itself. To do this, go to the menu Image – Create Image
   

   

2. Here the parameters are similar to those we chose when creating the RAM disk. Set the image file name, type, size, format and volume label. As an example, I will create an image with the same parameters as the RAM disk from the first example. Accordingly, you need to create an image file with exactly the same parameters as you want the RAM disk to have. This is important!

   

   After this, you will receive a message about the successfully created image.

   

3. Now we create the RAM disk itself. To do this, click on the already familiar big green plus. And in the window that opens, in the paragraph Path to the image file (optional) Click on the folder icon and select the image file created earlier.

   

   By the way, the image file itself can be created right there by clicking on the blank leaf icon. But we are not looking for easy ways!

   It could have been like that :)

4. Set the drive letter and be sure to check the box Save content. In this case, data from the RAM disk will be saved to the image file during system shutdown. And check the box Like a removable disk, if we don’t want unnecessary folders to be created on it.

   

   Basic parameters

5. Let's go to additional settings. Here we are interested in the point Save data to image every, min. If you store important information and there is a possibility of a sudden computer failure, set the frequency to 30 minutes, for example. But keep in mind that saving data to an image slows down the work. And if the created RAM disk occupies a large volume, the storage time increases significantly accordingly.

   

   Autosave to image

6. That's it, click OK and the created disk will be automatically mounted. You can start working with him.

   

   Result

Basic settings of the SoftPerfect RAM Disk program

In order to be a real guru in this program, let’s understand its basic settings. Fortunately there are few of them.

In order to get into them, go to the menu Tools - Settings.

Settings

Basic settings

Launch withWindows– the SoftPerfect RAM Disk program will be added to . A necessary setting so that RAM disks are created automatically, without your participation.

Allow configuration to unprivileged users– makes it possible for users who do not have administrator rights in Windows to work with the program and change the settings of created RAM disks.

Allow unmounting drives from File Explorer– thanks to it you can quickly disconnect the disk without going into the SoftPerfect RAM Disk program.

Global drive letters– use of global identification of disks created in the program. It is not recommended to disable it, according to the developer, if you are a regular user and do not use .

Show tray icon– when turned on, the program icon in the form of a lamb is displayed in the line next to the clock. It is better to leave it turned on for quick access to the program.

Results

So we have broken down the work with the SoftPerfect RAM Disk program and the process of creating RAM disks in it.

But why do I need a RAM disk? What will I record on it? How to best use it? This is what we will talk about in.

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If you often switch between a large number of applications and files, then a few seconds of difference at startup is far from trivial. You probably know that the easiest way to get such a boost is to buy an SSD. But what if you don't have the opportunity to use it? Or maybe you already have an SSD and want to save another second or two while reducing wear on the drive? In this case, you should experiment with a RAM disk - launching applications directly from the image in RAM.

While writing this article, it was difficult for me to shake off the feeling of déjà vu. I remember about seventeen years ago I created disks in memory to speed up the work of the old “Searchs”, which worked without hard drives. Loading took place from a floppy disk; when loading into memory, a RAM disk (an image with DOS software) was used. After loading the image into memory, all DOS utilities were loaded from this RAM disk, and not from a floppy disk, thanks to which the old “Search” worked much faster and the floppy disks themselves wore out less.

It turned out that the RAM disk is still relevant today. With its help (if you have a sufficiently large amount of RAM), you can speed up your computer (a memory disk works faster than an SSD) or Live USB (the idea is the same as with “Search”), and extend the life of your hard drive/SSD.

Why is this necessary?

Goals can be absolutely anything. You can either install applications on the RAM disk or use it to store data. Those who like to play can install their favorite toy on the RAM disk, but then the system must have more than 8 GB of RAM.

The most logical scenario for a RAM disk is computers with regular hard drives - especially on entry-level laptops, where hard drives do not shine with performance. True, it will not be possible to completely replace an SSD in this way, if only because of the price. Let's say a 60GB SSD can be purchased for about $60. Organizing a RAM disk of such capacity will be problematic. Firstly, not all computers support 64 GB of RAM. Secondly, finding a module with a capacity of 32 GB is still a problem. At the time of writing, offers on Yandex.Market were mainly for memory with a frequency of 1333–1600 MHz with a price starting from 22 thousand rubles per module.

To summarize, the best option for using a RAM disk is a laptop with a regular hard drive and 8 GB of RAM. Of the 8 GB, 4 GB can be allocated for a RAM disk. The remaining 4 GB is enough for quite comfortable work. And on the RAM disk you can install either one “heavy” application or a set of frequently used applications.

What do we need

Firstly, at least 6 GB of RAM, the more the better. Secondly, we will need a 64-bit version of Windows to support large (more than 3.25 GB) amounts of RAM. Thirdly, you need a program to create a RAM disk and work with it. In this article we will look at the Lite version of Dataram RAMDisk. This version is free, but the maximum supported disk space is only 4 GB. The paid version costs $18.99 and supports drives larger than 4GB.

Setting up a RAM disk

There is nothing complicated about setting up a RAM disk. First of all, download and install the Dataram RAMDisk program. There are no problems with the installation, the program works in both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows (I personally tested it in 32/64-bit Windows 7 and 64-bit Windows 8), however, as already noted, The 64-bit version is recommended - this way you can support larger RAM disks.

After installation, you need to run the configuration utility (Fig. 1) - either through the main menu or directly from the installer. I had a little confusion with the configuration program. At first I didn’t pay attention to the action being performed - by default, the program does not try to create a RAM disk, but to use an existing one (even when starting it for the first time), so when I clicked the Start RAMDisk button, naturally, nothing happened, and I also could not select the RAM size -disk.

Therefore, the first thing you need to do is select the Create a new FAT disk action, after which you will have the opportunity to set the size of the RAM disk and additional parameters. You also need to select the Save them on shutdown action so that the data written to the RAM disk is saved when the system or disk is shut down. You can select the disk location by clicking the Browse button: do not try to enter it manually, otherwise, every time you press the key, the program will tell you that such a file does not exist and it will be created :).

The minimum size of a RAM disk is 40 MB (who needs that - I don’t know). The maximum is calculated approximately like this: the maximum amount of RAM is approximately 30%.

Theoretically, you can click the Start RAMDisk button and start working. But we’re not looking for easy ways, right? Therefore, select the menu command View, Advanced to set additional parameters. After this, tabs with advanced parameters will appear. So, on the Settings tab, you can set the size of the RAM disk, determine the type of file system (you can even create an unformatted disk, and then format it as NTFS using Windows), select the boot sector format, set the disk label and create the TEMP directory.

On the Load/Save tab, you can enable automatic loading of the disk image at startup, as well as enable/disable saving the image upon shutdown. The Options tab allows you to set various options such as Clear RAMDisk memory on exit - an option for the paranoid, prohibiting compression of the image file on NTFS (Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystems) and others. As for me, the only useful option here is to prohibit disk compression (Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystems), since if compression is already enabled on an NTFS disk, I see no reason to compress the disk image again, however, I also don’t see It makes sense to use compression on NTFS. Why first forcefully reduce performance using compressed disks, and then heroically try to improve it using a RAM disk?

Now you can press that treasured Start RAMDisk button. When you start the RAM disk for the first time, you will need to install its driver, so in the window that appears, click the “Install” button.

Next, you need to wait until the RAM disk is created and formatted. On my not very fast laptop, this operation took a couple of seconds, which felt like system slowdown while creating the image file. After this, you can work with the RAM disk as with a regular disk.

If automatic loading of the disk at startup is not selected in the program settings, then next time (after rebooting the system) you will need to select the Load a saved image action.

Results

Fans of numbers and diagrams can run a disk performance test and compare the results with a regular hard drive and an SSD. In this article, I will not specifically present such results, since in theory (in these diagrams) everything will be very colorful - reading performance will increase by 50 times, and when writing, a 20-fold acceleration will be felt.

But what will we get in practice? In practice, everything will not be so beautiful, but the results will still be there. So, loading the same Word 2010 from a regular hard drive on an average computer takes about three seconds. Loading Word 2010 from a RAM disk, the image of which is located on a regular hard drive, will happen twice as fast - in about 1.5 seconds. However, loading the same application from an SSD without any RAM disks takes less than a second. Launching an application from a RAM disk whose image is located on an SSD disk will take less than half a second.

On Alex Axler's website, an interesting battle. One of the commentators wrote that he created a RAM Disk in the memory of a Windows computer and transferred “environment variables, the page file and the browser cache” to it. When another asked him why there was a swap file in the RAM disk, which is used (usually) in cases where Windows and applications do not have enough RAM, the third commentator pointed out that some programs require its unconditional presence, and noted that A RAM disk speeds things up a lot. Then the hacking started and the topic became tough. It will be interesting to remember one more thing: some commentators noted a logical point - a RAM disk allows you to save the infinite resource of an SSD. There is a certain reason for this.

But what about the page file? And this is interesting. Exists Windows swap file, and transferring it to a RAM disk is somewhat illogical, here the critics are right. In order not to explain for a long time, I’ll say it in charade: “winrar.rar”. Think about it and you will understand why the idea of ​​such a design is absurd. But, there is not only the Windows swap file, but also swaps of individual applications, and here... the absurd idea of ​​transferring the swap file to a RAM disk begins to become more logical and logical. In general, it is not entirely correct to call these resources swap files - rather, they are some kind of temporary files. The peculiarity of Photoshop and LR, for example, is that they are created in any case - whether you like it or not. And the commentator on the Exler forum was right, he just called it incorrectly, which is why he received harsh, ironic criticism.

I’ll move a little away from the topic of swapping and tell you what a RAM disk is. I actively tinkered with them back in DOS times, and then it was possible to get good acceleration for some programs using ramdrive.sys. Then the topic somehow faded into the background; there was no time for ramdisks. But the concept has not changed today - RAM is orders of magnitude faster than disk memory. Even the fastest SSDs (such as OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2, with their read speeds of up to 1500 megabytes per second) cannot compete with the RAM disk located in the main RAM of the computer. What can we say about HDD - a modern 3-terabyte hard drive, for example, transfers data at speeds of up to 158 megabytes per second at the edge of the platter, and only up to 80 MB in its center (be curious - in our review of 3-terabyte HDDs there are specific numbers ). For comparison, when testing the RAM disk with Crystal Disk Mark, I got the following numbers:

Writing 8 gigabytes (!) per second, reading - five. And this is also measured at DDR3 with a frequency of 1333 MHz, and if you return the settings to the standard 1600, I’m sure the numbers will be even higher. Obviously, the speed of the RAM disk is enormous, and the timings are minimal compared to anything else. Cons? Very serious. If the computer freezes or turns off unexpectedly, everything written on the RAM disk will not be saved. After restarting Windows, the drive will be clean. You cannot store any work on it - it is unsafe. Actually, that’s why a RAM disk is needed only for storing temporary files and something that you don’t mind erasing, but which will speed up significantly when transferred to a fast drive. Such as temporary files, folders with operational cache, etc. Well, you can put the “swap file” there ;-) (see the beginning)

So, I didn’t think much about it, but for some reason a lot of unrelated acquaintances started talking about RAM disks. Today we sat with podakuni , for example, at the Photoproject school in the evening, they tested a funny new Iomega hard drive (a model especially for Mac) on his MacBook, and he also said that he uses a RAM disk, and on a Mac, and that he transferred temporary Photoshop and Lightroom files there. According to him, this greatly speeds up programs. Well, I couldn’t stand it anymore - I came home, found the software and downloaded it. And at the same time I checked something. So far only preliminary, because a more detailed study will take time. The first impression is that yes, a RAM disk in Windows is needed if you work with Photoshop and LR. Moreover, both speed up noticeably on a computer that one wouldn’t dare call weak. Someone manages to get acceleration for other programs, but I’ll ignore this topic for now. And now the nuances.

By default, Lightroom keeps a gigabyte cache of pre-rendered files (its capacity can be varied), and Photoshop creates a TMP file on the specified drive. And turn off disk usage in such a role indeed it is forbidden. But they can actually be transferred to a RAM disk.

The screenshot shows a good example - after opening 14 pictures in Photoshop (and closing them), a 2 GB temporary file was created. Let me emphasize once again - the Windows swap file is on my computer completely turned off and the system has 32 (thirty-two) gigabytes of RAM. As you can see, this does not prevent Photoshop from creating temporary files, and if you have a laptop, for example, with a slow HDD that writes at a speed of only 100 megabytes per second, then it needs 20 seconds to create such a file. And he will waste time, no matter how much RAM you feed him. And even a fast SSD will need to spend some resources on this file. As practice has shown, access to this file occurs quite actively during Photoshop operation, both when using plug-ins, and during operations with files, and during serial processing. With Lightroom, the situation is somewhat similar - when you view photos, its built-in Camera RAW engine creates a preview, which it puts in a special folder. You can see where this folder is located in the settings. The files there are small - 500 kilobytes each, but in the process of processing the wedding photography there will be a gigabyte of them, and LR will access them. Thus, there really is a lot of meaning in transference. And considering that these files are “temporary”, there is no need to regret that they will be erased if the computer suddenly freezes or turns off.

Which RAM disk to choose? As an experiment, I installed Qsoft RAMDisk Enterprise under Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. Russian version of this driver free, and some reviews indicate that this is the best (and most productive) ramdisk for Windows. I can’t refute or confirm, I’ll just say that it started up under my OS, it works and doesn’t ask for money, and that’s already good. I note that the functions include such a thing as resetting and loading the contents of the RAM disk at startup and exit. It is understood that before turning off the PC, the contents are “hibernated” to the main media, and when Windows starts, they are loaded from there into the RAM disk. This allows you to keep the content of such a disk up-to-date and at least somehow combat the volatility of this type of “drive”.

I decided that I would experiment. Does anyone already have experience? It would be great to hear what you think.

21.01.2014 13881

Computer performance can depend on many components, but the most important of them, of course, are the physical characteristics of the processor and the amount of RAM. Methods that allow you to increase the speed of a computer programmatically, as a rule, have significant limitations, but they should not be neglected. If RAM is much faster than hard drives, why not try storing and processing temporary files directly in RAM?

This can be achieved using the RAM Disk program from the well-known software company SoftPerfect. The program creates a virtual disk in the computer's RAM on which the user can store and process certain temporary files. In theory, accessing these files should be much faster. In addition, according to the developer, using RAM Disk will not only increase computer performance, but also significantly reduce the load on the physical hard drive and reduce file system fragmentation.

Installing SoftPerfect is not particularly difficult. Along with the program, a special driver is installed into the system. RAM Disk has a very simple and convenient user interface with Russian language support. Work in the program begins with the creation of a virtual disk. If you click the "Plus" button, a window will open in which you will need to set the size of the virtual disk, assign a letter and select the file system type, for example NTFS. You can also create the necessary folders - directory names must be entered on a new line.

After clicking the “ok” button, the disk will be mounted.

The size of the created virtual disks is limited. In this case, the program itself determines the maximum volume that can be allocated for such a disk. You can work with virtual disks in the same way as with regular partitions; you can copy files to them, install programs, etc. True, when you unmount the disks or restart the computer, all data stored on them will be destroyed.

There are two options here - either copy the data to a physical disk before turning off the computer, or save it to a special SVI image, also located on the physical disk. You can create an image in RAM Disk by selecting the “Image” option in the menu.

In this case, you will need to specify the location of the image file, the size of the disk being created and the type of its file system. After the image is created, all that remains is to mount it, not forgetting to check the “Save contents” checkbox. So if you are going to install programs on a virtual disk, choose this method.

It's hard to say how useful RAM Disk really is. It’s no longer often necessary to perform one-time actions; on the other hand, does it even make sense to create a virtual disk for editing one or two files? However, it's up to you to decide. RAM Disk is distributed completely free of charge, so download, test and draw conclusions. The program is compatible with all popular versions of Windows, from XP to Windows 8 and 8.1.

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Skip best effort tasks is a new memory optimization feature in Google Chrome Optimizing RAM consumption is one of the highest priorities facing Google Chrome developers. In the fight for megabytes, any tricks are good, even those that at first glance cannot be used...

An awesome free computer program from a reliable and trusted manufacturer... of processors and video cards (AMD), called Radeon RAMDisk, will allow you to make an ultra-fast RAM disk in any computer that will work many, many times faster than your hard drive (HDD) and even SSD disk.

RAMDisk - fast disk in RAM

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

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

In fact, there are 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.

Operation speed

You will now understand everything without further ado - just by looking at the screenshots. So, here is the sad speed of my decrepit HDD drive...

...and this is the system SSD drive (more fun indicators)...

...but the speed of a drive created in RAM (hold on to your pants)...

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 on its own much faster than any disks, but add a multi-threaded high-speed data transfer bus with a pair of channels - and 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 of the system.
• Before transferring anything important and system-related to this virtual disk, make sure that you correctly and completely understand the transfer technology. Before experimenting, be sure to make system restore points and backups.
• When you turn off the computer, our virtual disk also turns off, or rather, completely evaporates. Don't worry - if you configure the program correctly, all data from the disk is written to a real physical disk. When the system starts, they are again written to the automatically remounted RAMDisk.
• In the event of a sudden power outage, the data will not have time to be written to the physical disk and will be completely lost somewhere among your loud curses at the electricians. That is why this method can be used completely painlessly only in laptops or computers with a UPS (uninterruptible power supply).
• When using this computer acceleration technology, you will literally lose a couple of seconds when turning off the computer and the same amount when starting it up.
• Simply “throwing” system or profile folders into this magic disk will not be correct. You also need to indicate to the system the correct new path to them.
• Storing simple files (photos, videos, music...) in RAMDisk is extremely stupid, sorry. There are others for this dimensionless places.

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

Why operating system manufacturers don’t use this feature and don’t give us convenient built-in tools for this remains a mystery. They may give birth in a few years, as with the adjustment monitor color temperature.

I dragged on a bit with the preface - You’re already afraid of impatience, and I’m here blah blah blah...

Radeon RAMDisk

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

Installing the program

For a couple of days I “tested” 2GB of RAM as an additional disk - I deleted it and made it 3GB with screenshots. I don’t play games, I practically don’t use programs that require computer resources, billion tabs I don’t keep them open at the same time - I think that the free (remaining) 5GB is quite enough for me for comfortable everyday work on a laptop.

Let's go...

If you leave a checkmark here, the disk creation program in RAM will start immediately. Perhaps when you first start, such an extortion window will appear - shoot it like a mad dog...

...and go to settings...

This is the first settings tab - here we set the size of the future disk (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 don’t recommend doing this yet, because additional steps are required, which I will describe in another article).

“Set Disk Label” is a required checkbox (we name our disk and assign an unallocated letter to it).

In the column “Image File to use For new Disk or to Load exiting image” we indicate the storage location of the drive image that is created when the computer is turned off (left as default).

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

Confused yet? It’s better to re-read it a couple of times, but do everything correctly - any mistake or inattention can cost you dearly. For those who don’t want to delve into it, just do everything as in my screenshots - I’ve tested this setting on a couple of computers several times already and everything works great.

The last settings tab remains...

“Manualy set RAMDisk timeout value” - delayed start when the system starts.

“Do not create backup file when saving disk image” - disables the creation of a disk backup if saving the disk 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” - clears the contents of the disk when shutting down.

“Do not start RAMDisk when Windows starts” - do not start when the system starts (manual start by clicking on the shortcut).

“Allow Image file to be saved in non System Drivers” - saving the image using third-party drivers.

Drum roll - click on the “Start RAMDisk” button and... agree to install the drivers...

...format the newly created virtual disk...

This requires special attention so as not to format the working or even system disk - make sure that the disk letter is correct (or rather, that any other letter is displayed, except for the working and system “drives”). In short, you, like me, will probably have such an evil window pop up...