RAM Disk Advice (1 Viewer)

BillyTheFish

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Ok, so I've thrown in the exta 8gb of RAM (so I have 16gb in total) and have set up a RAM Disk with RAMDisk Enterprise (evaluation version)

I set the RAMDisk to just under 10GB and upped the number of files for timeshifting to 15 minimum and 30 maximum (I think -I will have to check), leaving all the other settings the same.

It seems to be working flawlessly so far for FreeSat (although I haven't check HD TV of Freeview yet).

I left the file size at 256MB as I thought that having larger files would just take longer to write (albeit a very small amount of time when writing to RAM!) but does anyone know of any advantages of making the Timeshifting file size larger (or smaller for that matter)?
 

pilehave

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    Ok, so I've thrown in the exta 8gb of RAM (so I have 16gb in total) and have set up a RAM Disk with RAMDisk Enterprise (evaluation version)

    I set the RAMDisk to just under 10GB and upped the number of files for timeshifting to 15 minimum and 30 maximum (I think -I will have to check), leaving all the other settings the same.

    It seems to be working flawlessly so far for FreeSat (although I haven't check HD TV of Freeview yet).

    I left the file size at 256MB as I thought that having larger files would just take longer to write (albeit a very small amount of time when writing to RAM!) but does anyone know of any advantages of making the Timeshifting file size larger (or smaller for that matter)?

    AFAIK the file isn't created as a "real" 256MB file, since it contains no data. Creating a 1 MB file and a 100 GB file should theoretically take the same time. It just allocates the space needed.

    I use files at a 512 MB size. Don't know what is the best :)
     

    BillyTheFish

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    AFAIK the file isn't created as a "real" 256MB file, since it contains no data. Creating a 1 MB file and a 100 GB file should theoretically take the same time. It just allocates the space needed.

    I use files at a 512 MB size. Don't know what is the best :)

    Ah ok, yes that makes sense. I have no idea what to set it to in that case! Although I can't think of a reason why having larger files would be beneficial so I will probably leave them as is...
     

    porky996t

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    Hi Guys,

    I have upgraded my RAM to 10Gb - this is actually shown in Win7, although it does state only 3.25Gb is usable.

    I have now tried two different RAMDisk creation packages, that are both said to be able to get past the 3.25Gb RAM limit on x32 Windows, but to no avail. :( I'm still only getting the 3.25Gb as usable.

    I have had enough of messing around so I suppose I may as well do a clean install with Win7 x 64 to get the benefit of the additional RAM I have bought. Anything I need to be aware of, or alternatively, is there anything different that I will notice... speed, (additional RAM :rolleyes:) etc

    Thanks in advance.



    M.
     

    pilehave

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    I have never had x86 (32-bit) Windows 7 installed, but it's running happily on 3 PC's here :)
     

    porky996t

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    I seem to be making progress, although I just seem to be having problem after problem since the x64 install.

    I now have RAMdisk working with a 6Gb allocation. When booting up with RAMDisk activated the total start time until the desktop shows is about 4 minutes, however, without RAMDisk it is about 25 seconds. Is this behaviour correct?

    Thanks,


    M
     

    Jay_UK

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  • October 6, 2009
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    Hi there,

    The delay might be because you are loading a saved image for that drive, or you are formating the drive before it mounts?

    Which RAMdrive are you using and what are your settings?

    J.
     

    porky996t

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    Hi Jay,

    At first I tried Imdisk as suggested by perls on post 13. This worked, but didn't recreate the RAM at boot. I tried several times with it and then just gave up. I then tried RAMDisk Plus and it is this which is giving the long delay on boot.

    I may try the 'enterprise' one that BillyTheFish commented on, unless you have a suggestion?



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    pilehave

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    I use Dataram RAMDisk.

    If you have set it to save on shutdown or load at startup it writes/reads a 6 GB file from disk from/into RAM when doing so. My server is always on, so I don't mind it. But if I disable it, the drive-letter and sharing settings are gone, so that wouldn't work :)

    Sounds a lot like what you're seeing.
     

    Jay_UK

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    Hi there,

    I use Dataram.

    The trick is to create the ramdrive and format it, configure the software to load and save on startup.

    Once you have done this once, turn off the save on shutdown option (as you do not need to save timeshift files on shutdown), plus this can take ages to write when the HTPC is shutdown.

    J.
     

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