Using Ramdisk to store temporary files.

AnimeMania

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2014
334
18
18,815
My situation is I recently upgraded to 18GB of RAM (from 6GB), but the version of Windows 7 that I have can only use 16GB. Thinking of ways to fully utilize all of my RAM, a Ramdisk came to mind, but very few good uses for Ramdisks were discovered when doing my searches. The one that caught my attention was storing my temporary files (Windows and Internet Browsers) on a Ramdisk. I use a SSD (has plenty of free space) as a boot drive. I completely "Shut Down" Windows at the end of each day.
Pros: Reduce writing to the SSD. Reduce "junk files" taking up space on SSD. Windows and Browsers will run faster. Reclaims RAM (2GB) that Windows does not recognize. Removes temp files every night when computer shuts down.
Cons: Not sure if temp files are used for long periods of time (multiple days).
1) Should I or shouldn't I create a Ramdisk for temp files for Windows, browsers, or both?
2) How big should the Ramdisk be (keep in mind, it will disappear each night, or not if you think I should save it to disk before "Shutting Down" and restore upon "Boot Up")?
 
Windows 32 bit cvan only use 4gb ram total, including ram on motherbd and gpu. 64 bit versions have a much higher limit, well above 16gb.
I suspect what you are seeing is a result of your motherbd, not windows.

Please list your systems specs with make and model#'s if you can.
Thanks.
 
I am using Windows 7 Home Premium, the majority of the links state that 16GB is the maximum amount of RAM it can use, unless this has changed. See This link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1942685/windows-64bit-16gb-32gb-memory.html
16GB is more than enough RAM, I would be fine using only 10GB. I only added extra RAM because I thought a game that I like to play was cramped with 6GB (8GB was recommended).
My Motherboard is a Gigabyte EX58-UD5 and uses Triple-Channel DDR3. I had three 2GB chips and added three 4GB chips all are 1600MHz. The processor is an I7 960.