Create a Ram Disk in Windows XP/2000 to speed up graphics creation/Internet access

Published on September 9, 2003 By IPlural In WinCustomize Talk

I ran across this at one of the Tech sites I visit and thought it would be some use to people here for speeding up graphics creation and such.

Actually purchasing a 3rd party Ram Disk application would help more because of expanded size, but this is free and it will make a difference in graphics creation used as the first swap disk. It will also help those that just want to put their Internet CACHE on it so that IE finds info at ram speeds instead of disk read speed or conversly writes also.

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TO CREATE A RAM DRIVE ON WINDOWS XP/2000

Download this: http://download.microsoft.com/download/win2000ddk/sample01/1/NT5/EN-US/Ramdisk.exe

Extract it. (Note the location of which you extracted the files)

Go to Control Panel -> Add Hardware -> Choose From a List -> Other Devices -> Have Disk.
The disk, is the location of which you extracted the files

*Windows XP does not have Certifications for this.

Your RAM drive is installed, however you will only get 1MB on it.

*To Adjust RAMDRIVE SIZE:

Start Regedit in your :\windows\regedit

Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ramdisk\Parameters

"DriveLetter" is set to Z: *You may change this.

Change "DiskSize" to 1f00000

This should give you about 30MB.

NOTE:
If you want a larger RAM-drive, you will need to buy it from here.
http://www.cenatek.com/product_ramdisk.cfm

Glad to finally give a conclusion to the question BTW, this is pretested, it's working on my system right now.

Little tip, you can change the location of your cache files for Internet Explorer. If they go to the RAM Drive, it will help process web pages faster, and all you have to do is shut down the computer to clear the cache.

Comments (Page 3)

Weaksid

on Nov 16, 2003

Grr, I rebooted to get my Z: drive now. But it says it's not accessible. Ewww

Weaksid

on Nov 16, 2003

I deleted the downloaded file and I went to the purchase link and downloaded the 30try GUI version. So far as long as you don't go to the program it will continue run after you even reboot. Plus you can do up to it looks like 100mb Ramdrive. So far it's not working bad. Give me 3 more days and I'll see how much improvement there really is.

IPlural

on Nov 17, 2003

seems peoples are hammering it out

I've an appt in a bit but I will answer any questions that no one has answered yet when I get back..

kinda threw me seeing this post being active after a month or so

IPlural

on Nov 17, 2003

Seems peoples have it down and are working it out where needed...

kthxbye

on Nov 17, 2003

"*(Generally, the Windows(r) 2000 cache manager does a much better job of optimizing memory usage than Ramdisk does.) "

Yes, it does. That's why you use a ramdisk for things which go directly to disk, such as your internet cache, or your Paintshop scratch file (and whatever equivalent PSP uses.)

IPlural

on Nov 17, 2003

IPlural

on Nov 17, 2003

I've also setup my swap disks on this and my other systems to use D and E drives for Windows Swap files because they have the most free space and it seems to speed things up a bit...

Set C: to no swap
set D: swap
set e: swap

I use E: as my second swap drive for graphics apps so when the scratch disk (ram disk) is full it can either swap out to it, or the application will swap out to it...

different systems will see different results, some positive, some not so positive and some nothing at all.

I.R. Brainiac

on Nov 17, 2003

Swap files on a separate partition keeps the files from being written all over the HD and more continuous.Best if put directly after the root drive.(faster)

IPlural

on Nov 17, 2003

ah yup

Keith Perry

on Nov 18, 2003

Help, How can I make PSP6 better with the new drive?
My puter did not take kind to the new drive for cashe, so I moved it back to c drive. Now I'd like to use the drive strickly for PSP6, please help.

Keith Perry

on Nov 18, 2003

Weaksid

on Nov 18, 2003

I created a 99mb Ramdrive right now that I'm using, I see some but not a big diffrence. I think I'm just running to dang much at one time for my processor to handle. A 700mhz can only do so much

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