RAM Drive

I am planning on upgrading my ram (twice as much with less latency). This will give me a lot memory I really don't need, so I've been reading about RAM drives. I noticed after upgrading to an SSD, that AutoCAD ran way faster. My version kind of sucks (LT 2011) since it won't use my GPU and autodesk didn't see any need to make it play well with Win7Px64. Anyway, I was hoping it would be even faster if I ran it off a ram drive. I've seen people discus the idea of installing games on ram drives, but I don't really understand what is going on here. I know when you open a program, it is already loaded into RAM, what is different about using a ram drive?

 

RAM dirve: making the computer see a part of your RAM as a HDD then loading whatever you want on it like you would on a HDD.

I would personally forget it. RAM is volatile memory which means that you would have to reload everything on the RAM drive at each boot.

Setting up the RAM drive and then having to load everything on it at each boot isn't worth the trouble imo, stick to SSDs.

 

I use a ramdisk. It's much more faster then any SSD on earth. it's volatile you have to learn how to use it. it's really great once you setup everything.
there are many programs that do it automatically.
for desktops there's also some hardware with battery backup but imo the ones that are worth it, pci-e based because of higher bandwith, are very expensive.
other versions like sata bottlenecks the sata interface so it isn't that great.
for notebooks there's no hardware solution.

 

How much ram are we talking about? 32GB? That would sound good for me, since I practically never turn off my laptop. I keep it on even when I take it around with me.

 

if you let the battery run out, your info is lost. it's specially great for example for running virtual.
the problem with notebooks is that there's a limited number of ram slots. 99% only have 2. some have 4 and a few very rare ones have 6.
since 16gb sodimm ram modules are almost a myth and cost more then a notebook normal people have to stick with 8gb modules which limit things.
with desktops it's easy to find motherboards with 6 ram slots, or even more. server ones can even have dozens. so the price per gb can drop a lot.
I do not advise to use a ramdisk on a desktop without some backup power. fortunately with notebooks there isn't that problem.

 

I have 4 slots. I am either going for better timing ram (4x4GB, 1333MHz 7-7-7-21) or adding on to my existing 2x4GB with 2x8GB for a total of 24GB at 1333MHz 9-9-9-24. AutoCAD LT says it needs 1.5GB HDD to install, and thats probably the only program I'd do this for.

1) What program(s) do you recommended to set up the RAM Drive and to auto-load AutoCAD at boot?

2)Do you think going for 16GB of faster ram is better than 24GB of slow ram? I can't imagine what I'd do with 24GB...I really only need a little over 8GB, so I'm thinking a 4GB ram disk to leave me with 12GB usable ram.

 

just as a note, theres nothing such as 'slow RAM' and 'fast RAM' anymore. everything from nehalem and newer basically don't care about ram in real-world situations; hell, they barely care about ram specs in benchmarks.

of course, there are potentially situations* where it might make a difference, but generally, pay more attention to your wallet and the quantity of RAM than the speeds.

*i still have to read a single report where ram speed upgrades caused >1% performance difference in even mildly realistic workloads.

EDIT: i'm purely talking about CPU performance here. if you DO/WILL rely on the IGP, RAM speed may or may not make a difference,

 

more ram the better. even if with higher latency.
I recommend superspeed ramdisk software.

 

With regards to RAM drives:

Unless you can have so much RAM installed that using some as a RAM disk doesn't force the rest of your system to start swapping, then a RAM drive is a possibly good use of your resources.

In my experience, even with 32GB or more of RAM - I can always get more performance benefit of letting Win7x64 use all the available physical RAM than to setup a RAM drive to speed up a small, specialized portion of my workflow and worry about not exceeding it's limits.

When those limits are exceeded - not only does the system come to a complete crawl - more often than not it crashes everything I was working on too - definitely not the way to increase performance in any way shape or form!

RAM drives are okay for very specific scenarios - but if you're just 'dabbling' with making the most of the physical resources your system offers, I would suggest that they're more trouble than they're worth (especially when you hit their limits (or the artificial limits you impose on the rest of your system)...).