Question about RAMDisk

[Eisbrecher34]

I was wondering if someone could help me understand what RAMdisk is good for and what it can do. I know it acts pretty much as a "virtual" Hard Drive with speeds way faster than an SSD, but since it is utilized by your RAM, it will dump everything on shutdown.

I have 8 gigs of RAM, but I only use about 3-4, so I was thinking about making a 2-4 gig RAM disk, but all I do is play games and utilize the internet. I don't do any photo / video editing and the only time I am decrompessing a file is when I download an already compressed one. My question is will I have any use in using a RAM disk or should I just stick with what I have?

 

[RealBeast]

If you like to tinker with stuff, a RAM disk might be for you. Not really for everyday use unless you have the need, but a decent free one like the 4gb Dataram RAMDisk works well. There is a benchmark page for different software HERE and most run pretty similar.

You can put anything on there that you use a lot and you will notice the speed -- I use one as a scratch disk for photoshop or premiere occasionally just for fun.

 

[Eisbrecher34]

OK I appreciate the response. I'll try putting my internet browser on there and see how it is.

Thanks!

 

[RealBeast]

If you use Firefox, make sure that your caches are on the RAMdisk too: http://lifehacker.com/5687850/speed-up-firefox-by-moving-your-cache-to-ram-no-ram-disk-required

 

[Eisbrecher34]

Best answer selected by Eisbrecher34.