Which is better?

[voicesurfr]

to use my extra memory as a Ramdisk or cache?

 

[mjmacka]

A RAMDisk is "an SSD with no Wearing Out and around 100x faster" however it is more volatile, whereas a ram cache would just be regular system memory as it caches files and data that you are using for quicker access by the cpu.

A RAMDisk is better, but only for certain features. If you want to play a game, you could transfer the game to the RAMDisk, it would load from there allowing for faster load. The main issue is that you have to manually transfer things there.

Some software is able to assist with decreasing bootup times, but I don't have a recommendation.

 

[voicesurfr]

A RAMDisk is "an SSD with no Wearing Out and around 100x faster" however it is more volatile, whereas a ram cache would just be regular system memory as it caches files and data that you are using for quicker access by the cpu.

A RAMDisk is better, but only for certain features. If you want to play a game, you could transfer the game to the RAMDisk, it would load from there allowing for faster load. The main issue is that you have to manually transfer things there.

Some software is able to assist with decreasing bootup times, but I don't have a recommendation.

Thanks MJ, I have heard that some RAMdisk prorgrams 'load' and 'save' to an image. Whick would be great but cause my startup and shut down times to increase.

I should say i have 64Gb of memory but am concerned that a 50GB RAMDisk would only hold 2 or so games.

 

[mjmacka]

The idea behind a RAMdisk program is that it can load the OS faster from the RAMdisk during startup/shutdown and normal operation.

Well, you will have to unload games if the RAMdisk fills up. I checked my steam folder (currently 5 games) and they only take up 30 GB of ram. Rome Total War 2, DOTA2, and a few small ones. Games are large these days remember to unload them from your RAMdisk. Most applications like this are optimized so that you basically you select the RAMdisk "image" and run your game.

 

[voicesurfr]

I would go the route of a RAMdisk because of the following reasons:

#1 Extremely fast. They can go 5,000MB/s - 10,000MB/s and even above
#2 Great way to use extra ram if you have it
#3 If you're a gamer, that high speed is going to benefit a) Load times, b) Stop fps/lag due to hard drive speeds sucking, c) Overall smoother, more fun gaming

If you want to learn more about what a Ramdrive is, check out http://Dimmdrive.com as it has some really good information, videos, and is a very featurful ramdisk software.

Thanks TimDD , I will check out that site.