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RamDisk Plus by SuperSpeed allows you to use a portion of your system memory as a hard drive, known as a RamDrive.
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DDR2 800 memory has a maximum transfer rate of 6400 MB/s. A SataII hard drive has a maximum transfer rate is 3000 MB/sec. Of course, actual transfer rates will be lower due to OS overhead and mechanical limitations, especially in hard drives.

Drive performance per HD Tune 2.55

RamDrive:




Western Digital VelociRaptor 10000rpm Hard Drive:




Seagate 7200rpm Hard Drive




So, speed wise, the RamDrive is worth it. A average transfer rate 30x greater than the VeolciRaptor and near 0ms access time is great.

Some reality checks before giving all your system memory to the RamDrive. You OS still needs memory. Your games and applications still need memory. So you have to balance your allocation of system memory to the RamDrive. If you assign system memory to the RamDrive, then your OS and Games will have to use swap space which is much slower than memory. The following is my take on Vista and game memory requirements; you may have to experiment to find an ideal ratio.

You should have at least 2GB memory for Vista; 4GB is ideal. Since DDR2 memory is fairly cheap, you may be able to install 8GB - depending on your motherboard and your wallet. Games seem to use up to 2GB (Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, Team Fortress 2) and the OS seems to use about 2GB. So if you have 2GB of memory, your probably only want to use 32MB or so for the RamDrive. If you have 4GB of memory, then you can probably use 512MB of memory. If you have 8GB of memory, you can probably use up to 4GB of memory.

Again, a RamDrive is created out your system memory. If your system looses power or when you shutdown your computer, then all the contents of the RamDrive (programs, data) is lost - gone - no more. RamDrive Plus does allow you to save the contents of the RamDrive to a physical file on your real hard drive; manually, or automatically when you shutdown your computer. RamDrive Plus will also auto load the the saved RamDrive contents when your computer boots up. But if your computer shutdowns or crashes unexpectedly, then the contents of the RamDrive will be lost. Note, the larger your RamDrive, the longer it takes to save and load it; a 2GB RamDrive takes about 30s on average to load off a VelociRaptor.

Also, system memory is typically not EEC (Error Correcting Code) due to costs. So overtime, your RamDrive could become corrupt. I have been using a 2GB RamDrive for about 2 months now without problems; I do shutdown my computer daily though. If you leave your computer on without a reboot for weeks or months, then a RamDrive may require you to change your habit.

My thoughts on what to install and what not to install on a RamDrive:
(Your mileage may vary)

Install:
browser and internet cache
small programs
small log files
disk intensive programs - if you have space

Do Not Install:
any program data that is crucial to your job or existence - it's a RamDrive
most games - as they are often take 4GB or more of disk space
your /windows/temp folder - since some temp files may be larger than your RamDrive
antivirus - since it should start as soon as possible

I have install about 21 programs on the RamDrive without issues; such as:
OpenOffice, Paint.net, VideoLan, doPDF, WinSCP, cygwin, FireFox, Opera, JKDefrag, etc

Some screen shots of the RamDrive Plus control panel

Overview




Options (to use a wizard interface or show all options; showing non-wizard)




Create a new RamDrive - Choose size




Create a new RamDrive - Memory type




Create a new RamDrive - Type (choose partionable to mimic a normal hard drive)




Create a new RamDrive - Partitioning (defaults fine)




Create a new RamDrive - Image File (check Save and Reserve space - for performance in saving)




Create a new RamDrive - Drive and File
(choose a drive letter, such as R:
Select a file system type, NTFS should be fine
Compress will allow you to store more content on the RamDrive at minimal expense of CPU usage.
If you choose NTFS, you can compress the Ramdrive via the OS later.)




RamDrive Plus does allow you to Backup your RamDrive to another image file or Save your RamDrive to the current image file. However, neither option worked for me. I did terminate all running programs that resided on the RamDrive, but RamDrive Plus complained about being unable to get a lock on the RamDrive.







To make a manual backup of the RamDrive, I had to remove the RamDrive, absolutely making sure to check the Keep Image File, and then manually coping the image file to another file. The RamDrive image file will reside in the root of your hard drive, typically C:\SsRd0001.cif




Also, I was unable to resize the RamDrive after creating it. If you do not use an image file, then you are able to resize the RamDrive. A potential major annoyance if you guess to large or too small a size for your RamDrive for your optimal use.

Overall, a fairly easy way to increase performance and make use of cheap memory
- a RamDrive via RamDisk Plus

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