Anybody using a RAM Disk ?

Super Nade · Dec 1, 2014

I picked up some cheap DDR3 yesterday and now my main rig has 32Gb of RAM. Of course, this is massive overkill for my purposes. Now, I'd like to setup a RAMDisk and run Steam games off of it.

I've perused the internet for a few basic pointers and guides. Do any of you have experience with this? I'd rather trust our guys than some random internet guide.

Woomack · Dec 2, 2014

Since it's losing all data when you turn off PC then I don't know if it's good idea for storage.
RAM disk is generally used for caching data like when you set page file on this drive, internet browser cache and other stuff like that. You can set something like auto copy of games folder after booting with some external folder for game saves or whatever it's saving on the drive so you won't lose any progress if system restarts.
In theory it's much better idea than in real but maybe you find a way to make it good.

Zakarro · Dec 10, 2014

Woomack said:
Since it's losing all data when you turn off PC then I don't know if it's good idea for storage.
RAM disk is generally used for caching data like when you set page file on this drive, internet browser cache and other stuff like that. You can set something like auto copy of games folder after booting with some external folder for game saves or whatever it's saving on the drive so you won't lose any progress if system restarts.
In theory it's much better idea than in real but maybe you find a way to make it good.

Actually most RAMdisk have the option to save it before shutdown to the HDD and later auto restore when you bootup.

I use RAMdisk all the time with my SSD, saves the lifespan by caching all the crap files to the RAMdisk, heck you can put pagefile on there too.

NiHaoMike · Dec 14, 2014

I use tmpfs for /tmp, /var/tmp, and /var/log.

Zakarro · Dec 14, 2014

NiHaoMike said:
I use tmpfs for /tmp, /var/tmp, and /var/log.

Linux has its own RAMdisk no?

NiHaoMike · Dec 14, 2014

Tmpfs is more or less a RAMdisk. It's not Linux specific either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmpfs

Zakarro · Dec 14, 2014

NiHaoMike said:
Tmpfs is more or less a RAMdisk. It's not Linux specific either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmpfs

Yeah but only some distros make use of it right?

NiHaoMike · Dec 14, 2014

All modern kernels support it (might need to compile in the option), but only some distributions use it by default. You can just add a line such as "tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=4G 0 0" to /etc/fstab.

Zakarro · Dec 14, 2014

NiHaoMike said:
All modern kernels support it (might need to compile in the option), but only some distributions use it by default. You can just add a line such as "tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=4G 0 0" to /etc/fstab.

Thou sir seem to be guru man if you know how to compile. Im still very green with lin.

What I do do is multiple partitions for each thing efi,root,swap,home,tmp,usr,var,srv,opt,usr/local

From what I hear thats better for security reasons then just 2 or 3 partitions

NiHaoMike · Dec 14, 2014

With 16GB of RAM, you probably don't need any swap. Separate partitions for security is largely a myth. Where it's helpful is to prevent overuse of space from affecting other users on the system, but disk quotas are a better way to do it.

Zakarro · Dec 15, 2014

NiHaoMike said:
With 16GB of RAM, you probably don't need any swap. Separate partitions for security is largely a myth. Where it's helpful is to prevent overuse of space from affecting other users on the system, but disk quotas are a better way to do it.

Ohh I dont run Lin anymore, last distro I was running was slacko puppy on little work rig with AM1 sempy and 4 gigz of RAM.

In any case concering the partitions, doesnt apparmor take advantage of that layers of partitions for security? I like using it as an alternative to SElinux, you know who makes that....

Disk quotas I heard of em, plz explain.

ANd what ever happen to bastille? I was trying to install it on SUSE and Mint but the page seems to be dead.

EarthDog · Dec 15, 2014

Zakarro said:
I use RAMdisk all the time with my SSD, saves the lifespan by caching all the crap files to the RAMdisk, heck you can put pagefile on there too.

I wouldn't do it solely to save the lifespan of an SSD... unless you have a 5 year old SSD that can't handle the writes that today's SSD can.

On another note. Though some people can get away with not having a PF others can't (me). There are some applications that actually REQUIRE the use of one. Even though I have 16GB of ram, my PF rests happily with a fixed size on my SSD.

Zakarro · Dec 23, 2014

EarthDog said:
I wouldn't do it solely to save the lifespan of an SSD... unless you have a 5 year old SSD that can't handle the writes that today's SSD can.

On another note. Though some people can get away with not having a PF others can't (me). There are some applications that actually REQUIRE the use of one. Even though I have 16GB of ram, my PF rests happily with a fixed size on my SSD.

Yeah even with 64 gigz of RAM I wouldnt turn page file off, like you said some proggys requier it despite how big your "table" is

Mpegger · Dec 23, 2014

SuperNade, if you're on Windows 7 or higher, don't bother with a ram disk for speeding up game load times. Just let Windows use all the extra ram as cache. This way, everything that is used often, including game data, gets a boost.

Zakarro · Dec 23, 2014

Mpegger said:
SuperNade, if you're on Windows 7 or higher, don't bother with a ram disk for speeding up game load times. Just let Windows use all the extra ram as cache. This way, everything that is used often, including game data, gets a boost.

I think you need superfetch and prefetch for that, I turn them off with SSD

Mpegger · Dec 23, 2014

If you manually disable them in Services, then yes, you lose that benefit. Windows is smart enough to know what part if those services to disable without disabling the entirety of those services, if you are running on a SSD.

EarthDog · Dec 23, 2014

Exactly. There is no harm in running Superfetch with an SSD.

Zakarro · Dec 23, 2014

EarthDog said:
Exactly. There is no harm in running Superfetch with an SSD.

Of course no harm, but an SSD just doesnt need it. I turn that off and indexing, SSDs are so fast they dont need any of these 3 things.

EarthDog · Dec 23, 2014

Be careful when disabling indexing, do it by drive as your HDD will need it.

Considering that Superfetch is handled in the ram and ram is faster than an SSD, it really is best to leave it on. No harm either way, but disabling doesn't bring any benefits.

Mpegger · Dec 23, 2014

EarthDog said:
Be careful when disabling indexing, do it by drive as your HDD will need it.

Considering that Superfetch is handled in the ram and ram is faster than an SSD, it really is best to leave it on. No harm either way, but disabling doesn't bring any benefits.

I would argue that more "harm then good" would happen with disabling Superfetch, as no cacheing would be occuring in ram, and that free ram would be going to waste. No matter what current consumer SSD you're running, it'll never beat out ram.

Anybody using a RAM Disk ?

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