RAM Disk Software: 11 Best Free Tools We Tested
RAM Disks can be very useful and if you have the memory available, using system RAM as a disk drive can really speed up certain operations. One common usage is storing the system temporary files or cached files from your web browser or other software. Another usage scenario is storing specific programs or data files you use often for faster loading. For example, we’ve talked previously about how Firefox performance can be improved by storing some of its files in RAM.
There are several applications around that can create RAM Disks for you, some are shareware or commercial products but quite a few are free to use. Although you might think RAM disks all work at the same speed because they use the same physical RAM, that is not the case. Better coded and optimized RAM disk software really can make a difference in how well the disks perform.
Here we look at 11 free programs that can create RAM disks and run a performance test to see how fast each program is when reading from and writing to the RAM disk. The popular CrystalDiskMark tool is used to run the benchmark. The 4K scores test small file performance while Sequential (Seq) scores test the speed of transferring larger files. Depending on the intended use for the RAM disk, one set of scores may be more important than the other.
A good score in both 4K and sequential tests would be the best result for general all round good performance. The screenshot below shows a CrystalDiskMark result from a standard 7200RPM hard drive.
The next screenshot is a typical NVMe SSD result. You’ll notice the 4K scores in particular for the SSD are vastly superior. This is what really sets a solid state drive apart from a mechanical hard drive in terms of performance.
Test Hardware and Conditions
Each RAM disk created is 512MB in size (or close to it) and formatted to NTFS. The CrystalDiskMark test file size is set to 256MB and each test is run with 5 passes to give an average. We also run a test recently added to CrystalDiskMark called Mix. It combines both read and write tests with transfer ratios manually selectable (default is 70% read and 30% write). This score is useful to get a general overview of performance.
The operating system is Windows 10 64-bit (21H1) with a PC containing an AMD Ryzen 5 3400G, a Gigabyte B450 Motherboard, and 16GB of DDR4 memory running at 3,000Mhz.
The results for the RAM Disk software will give you an idea of how much faster a RAM disk is. Even the slowest RAM drive software is still faster than a standard SSD although fast NVMe drives are catching up to RAM disk speeds. Obviously, the slower your computer and system memory is, the slower your RAM disk will perform in comparison.
Although you can use the original ImDisk driver and Control Panel applet, the ImDisk Toolkit is easier to use. It also includes options to mount floppy, CD-ROM and hard disk image files (ISO, BIN, VFD and etc) as virtual drives.
RAM disk size is not limited and there are options to load content from an image file or folder, synchronize at shutdown, enable compression, auto add temporary folders, and allocate memory for the RAM disk dynamically.
Note that the option to allocate memory dynamically is not enabled as it is supposed to lower the performance of the RAM disk.
Radeon RAMDisk is a rebranded version of Dataram RAMDisk but it actually has a higher limit on the maximum size of the RAM disk. Radeon RAMDisk is not just for AMD based systems but also works on Intel and others.
For a standard system, the maximum RAM disk size is 4GB, if you have AMD branded memory installed, that limit is increased to 6GB. Higher limits can be purchased separately. Note you will get an ad window when opening the user interface.
3. Asus ROG (Republic Of Gamers) RAMDisk
ROG is an acronym for the “Republic Of Gamers” brand that is used on Asus high-end motherboards and other Asus hardware. RAMDisk is a similarly branded tool but works on all computers and not just ROG branded hardware.
The drive size limit appears to be around 50% of the total amount of RAM you have installed. The Junction tab is useful so you can easily create junction points to map real folders to the RAM disk.
We did try with the “Dynamic Memory Allocation” option enabled and disabled. Seven of the eight CrystalDiskMark scores did improve but the difference was so small that it would be unnoticeable in real world use.
Ultra RAMDisk Lite is a multi-purpose tool that can also create ISO images, create virtual ROM drives, and change system/Internet Explorer/Chrome cache directories. Known limitations of the free Lite version include only one RAM disk at any one time with a maximum size of 2GB, and no Dynamic memory allocation.
Click on RAM Disk+ in the main window to open the RAM disk settings. The available options allow you to set the default filesystem (FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS), use a SCSI or Direct I/O disk, mount as a removable disk, create TEMP folders, and use as a one time disk that removes itself on shutdown. One slight annoyance is the buy now nag often pops up when opening the user interface.
The Direct I/O Disk Type was used for the benchmark as the program says it’s the faster of the two options. We did try the SCSI Disk Type and the difference in performance was anywhere between 5% and 25%, so Direct I/O should be used where possible.
Miray RAM Drive is definitely the easiest program to use here and is almost foolproof to operate for all but the most inexperienced of users. However, that comes at the expense of features.
There are no real features to speak of and you simply have options to autostart with Windows and adjust a few confirmation dialogs. Simply click on the tray icon, adjust the slider to set the RAM drive size, and press the power button to mount.
The maximum RAM drive size is 4GB for 32-bit systems and 8GB for 64-bit systems. This can be expanded by purchasing a paid version.
As we mentioned earlier, Dataram RAMDisk and AMD Radeon RAMDisk are in essence the same program. The only major differences are Dataram has a smaller maximum RAM drive size of 1GB, you can select a FAT or unformatted filesystem, and there is an option to choose a boot sector type.
The AMD tool has additional options to choose what type of disk to load on startup and which drive letter to assign the RAM drive to. Both will periodically popup an ad window.
Disk Master is a multi-purpose application with some useful features. In addition to a RAM disk creation tool, Qiling Disk Master can also create/mount virtual drives, backup and restore the system drive or partitions, create and format partitions, clone/migrate disks, and even create a WinPE PreOS recovery system.
The RAM Disk option itself is pretty basic but doesn’t appear to limit disk size. It has options to change the drive letter, save the drive contents, and put Temp folders onto the disk (including setting the system TEMP folder to the RAM drive). Go to “Tools and utilities” from the main window to create, modify, and stop the RAM disk.
There is an option during install that is pre selected to join the “Customer Experience Improvement Program”. Make sure to opt out if you don’t want it.
OSFMount is designed to be used in conjunction with Passmark’s OSForensics but works equally well as a standalone product. The program can also be used to mount virtual disk images to a drive letter, such as ISO, BIN, IMG, VMDK, and VHD. You can directly load one of those virtual disks as a RAM drive while going through the setup wizard.
The RAM disk size only appears to be limited by the amount of free RAM you have. Make sure to enable the option to format the drive during its setup, otherwise, you will have to manually format afterward.
Most of the options during step 4 of the wizard setup should be left alone and are mostly related to virtual drive images.
9. Gizmo Drive (Part of Gizmo Central)
Gizmo Central is a software frontend for several Gizmo tools, including macro scripting, database analysis, text/hex editor, and a file hasher. Luckily, if you just want the Gizmo Drive RAM disk, these other components can be excluded during install.
Once installed, select an empty virtual device and press Create Image. Along with creating a virtual hard disk or an ISO image, you can then set up a new RAM disk. Size is only limited to the amount of system RAM you have and you can create up to 10 virtual disks at once.
10. SoftPerfect RAM Disk (Freeware version)
SoftPerfect RAM Disk was originally shareware, then was made freeware in 2012. But with the release of version 4 in 2016, it went back to being shareware again.
The size of the RAM drive can be as big as the amount of free RAM you have. Multiple drives can be mounted and unmounted from the user interface. You can select the default filesystem and also supply folders to be auto created once the drive is mounted.
The version tested and the download link is for the last free version, 3.4.8, released in October 2016.
Starwind is another nice and simple RAM disk software to use. However, for some stupid reason, StarWind requires you to fill in a form on their website to download the software. A temporary email works just fine though.
Add a device, select a size (limited by free RAM), choose whether to FAT format it and whether to automount. The only other notable options are setting the default RAM disk configuration and changing the skin for the software interface.
Other available RAM disk software
There are some other RAM disks out there that we have tested before or looked at and cannot include for various reasons. ASRock XFast RAM is a program that still works but only if you have an ASRock motherboard (our test motherboard was a Gigabyte). BondDisc is another tool we looked at in the past that is actually very fast. Sadly, it won’t install on modern systems and is limited to a 640MB disk.
Results and Summary
As we mentioned earlier, the results can be split into two distinct categories, 4K scores and Sequential (Seq) scores. The Q8T1 score for sequential and Q32T1 score for 4K is how well the RAM disk handles multiple file transfer requests at once, so they represent a heavier workload.
Tools that did well with 4K performance were IMDisk, and especially OSFMount. ROG RAMDisk did very well in a single queue workload while Gizmo Drive and Miray did well in a multi queue workload.
Software that did well in the 4K scores also mostly does well in the sequential read and write scores. OSFMount wins this test with very high scores in both single and multi queue workloads. Softperfect and UIltra RAMDisk Lite were also fast across both tests.
There isn’t really a clear winner because no drive won a sizeable number of the 12 different tests. If we had to choose one, we’d pick OSFMount. It is very fast across the board and read/write scores were very consistent. StarWind RAM Disk was also consistent but not as fast. Other generally fast but not as consistent tools were Ultra RAMDisk Lite, ImDisk, ROG RAMDisk, and SoftPerfect RAM Disk.
At the end of the day, it depends on what you want from your RAM disk. Do you want a fast all rounder, fast sequential or random speeds, or a preference for reads/writes? All RAM disk tools actually performed reasonably close to each other and you probably wouldn’t notice a huge difference between most of them.
December 2021. Using Windows 10 Pro 21H2 64-bit and 32GB RAM.
When using ImDisk RAM Disk, and put the Windows-Temp folders on it, after reboot I don’t have any internet connection anymore. Can’t find anything about how or why and can’t manage to gain internet access again. Uninstalling ImDisk and I have internet again. All other RAM disk software I tried last month (Qiling, Softperfect, OSF, Primo, Ultra) don’t have that problem and work fine as they are.
My best tested and usable for permanent Temp-folders and working space so far are Primo and Softperfect, Ultra does a great job too. Too bad ImDisk blocks my internet connection because as a Ram disk it’s not bad either.
Be advised that as Windows 10 Update 1809, trying to create a ram drive of 4096 MB or larger will fail with error code C000009A.
4095 or smaller works fine (subject to program limitations) so the obvious workaround is to stripe or span them.
Downside is this requires hardware emulation mode, which at least partly defeats the purpose.
Somewhere along the line I damaged my ancient Sandy Bridge board, so I can only use two slots, which makes it doubly sucky for me.
I can no longer hit 10GB/s – stuck under 4.
Hi Robert,
The 4096 limit comes a suprise to me, i’ve using Windows 10 64 1903 with 24GB RAM and use an imdisk 8GB ramdrive (dynamic mode) with no apparent problem.
Though I’d test, results were interesting.
Did a couple of tests (figures are approximate)
Files on Ramdrive 2GB space 4GB – filesize
No errors message other than not enough room on disk after 4Gb copied
Same problem with status code = C000009A when i want to go above 4096MB with SoftPerfect RAM Disk
I am using Win10 2004 with 16GB RAM.
I haven’t tested it but the 4GB+ issue should be fixed since RAM Disk version 4.0.8 (https://www.softperfect.com/contact/knowledgebase.php?article=39)
It would be nice to have an update of this article with the 4GB+ support on Windows 10 Update 1809+. I should retest it but I think StarWind RAM Disk supports 4GB+ drive with Windows 10 Update 1809 or newer (but as far I remember StarWind doesn’t allow you to set a drive letter)
I don’t like that they actually didn’t say which was the fastest overall. WTF.
That’s because a fastest overall doesn’t really matter, it’s what you want to do with your RAM disk and whether you prefer small/large file read/writes is what counts.
I got a problem lately – 8 of 16 Gb of my RAM is “Hardware Reserved”
Is there a soft which can deal with that hardware reserved memory?
Sorry friend, but if I’m right you’re talking about a laptop computer, as opposed to a tower or other form factor. This is important because a lot of laptops (or tablets) have the display adaptor’s chipset directly on the laptop’s motherboard. These integrated video cards have the major drawback of reserving a portion of the laptop’s RAM for use as Video memory instead of using dedicated memory which would normally be located on your video card. On top of creating more demand on your RAM (I/O AND space) these integrated display adaptors offer poor performance and functionnality, Therefore If you do have the option to install a video card on your device it’s an upgrade you should consider, especially if you play games, have problems with jittery video playback, or if you tinker with deep learning or mine bitcoins (lol). In any case if you do install a new video card there is usually an option in your motherboard’s BIOS to deactivate the integrated display adaptor, which should free your precious RAM for better uses._. :)
I suggest that you consider adding ERAM to this list. It works on Windows XP/NT/2000/7/10 (32 and 64-bit) and has a maximum limit of 4 GB on Windows 7/10 (until I fix the BSODs caused by using a disk that is larger than that after removing the limit). Its driver and source code can be found by going to github.com/Zero3K/ERAM.
Which one allows auto-save from time to time so – no data loss – on power off?
What about GPU Ram Disk results. Theres a few options out there. Just figured you could make it complete.
I don’t see much point in testing those, developers have admitted they are really too slow to be compared to regular RAM disks and are created to prove that it can be done, not that they are of any valuable use.
It seems you deleted Gavotte Ramdisk no ? I was sure to read here about it and results.
That’s right, when we last updated the article I couldn’t get Gavotte to work at all, so had to leave it out.
According the Winramtech ( formerly QSoft Ramdisk ) web site , the development of their ramdisk will stop on August 1st , 2017. They provide now also a free 256 MB 64=bit version.
Thanks – for some reason, I did not find it myself.
BTW, although I use your knowledge quite often, I never really thanked you for all the great tips – so I’m doing it now. Even my current favourite browser (Yandex) was found here as well as a lot of other software that I actually do use on a regular basis.
You’re the best!
Regards,
Milan
I don’t know how much they payed for this but a Croatian computer magazine made a test and SoftPerfect RAM Disk ended up being the fastest out of all, also it’s completely free.
Well, this article is a few years old but Softperfect is about 2nd fastest in this test.
Hi,
Great test thanks!
It would be interesting to see this test done in an AMD and Intel setting as well. I’m guessing AMD will be some 50% worse in the memory management area.
thanks for the review
Thanks for keeping it up to date. I’ve just downloaded Softperfect and 4K writes are definitely improved. Using it for my Temp folder, Firefox cache and Small pagefile.
You’re just losing performance using a ramdisk as pagefile. Just decrease the size of the ramdisk and you won’t need the pagefile because you’ll have more available ram.
Some software demands a page file, eg Photoshop CS6 (and probably earlier ones). I have 16 GB, and can spare 4GB for a ramdisk containing a pagefile. This works extremely well with Photoshop, and doesn’t thrash my SSD anymore.
pagefile IS needed by some programs. Putting it out of a phisical disk is a plus (be it HDD or SSD is the same in the end). When you are over 16GB ram you can spare some to send all disk caches there.
Great job on the benchmarks! I am curious to know how Raxco’s RamDisk Plus stacks up against these competitors.
Thanks for the write up! Great job! :)
I’ve downloaded Raxco Ram disk product and it seems that Raxco have bought out SuperSpeed which is in this range of tests.
I tested both Raxco (SuperSpeed) and Softperfect RAM disk and Softperfect freeware crushes Raxco on the performance front.
Raxco offers a few more features however, which might be worth it for some people.
Anvil Storage Utilities RC6:
Raxco:
Read total = 24996.38
Write total = 11708.25
Total = 36704.63
Softperfect:
Read total = 31455.34
Write total = 14948.61
Total = 46403.94
Considering Softperfect is 100% free i don’t see why i should pay $99 for the Raxco software?
@HAL9000 – The next time ramdisks are evaluated, it would be very helpful if you would include the maximum RAM Disk size allowed by each product. One of my regular tasks is to run scanpst.exe to repair outlook.pst files for my users and some of their pst files are over 10GB (I don’t judge.) A RAM disk is the perfect way to speed up this tedious task and it would be nice to know which products can do the job.
That’s a valid point Netpilot, and the simple answer I can give is we’ve tried to list the limit where the information was readily available. Most RAM Disk software doesn’t actually have a maximum size limit and creating one depends entirely on how much memory you have available and your operating system architecture (whether it’s 32-bit or 64-bit).
Thanks. For sure it depends on the system. I’m running Windows 8 x64. As a sysadmin, it obviously pays for me to install 16 or even 32GB of extra RAM in my machine if it can save me enough time over the life of the investment. (Besides, it’s really boring to watch a progress bar.)
By the way, great article. You seems to be the only one on the ‘net who has actually compared the speed of a variety of RAM Disk products. Kudos too, for keeping it updated.
excellent article, thank you!
the SoftPerfect RAM disk works very well here, much faster than Dataram
cheers!
This software is only in German language: ArchiCrypt Ultimate RAM-Disk 3
QSoft RAMDisk has no good installer and somethings you have to do manually, it also freezes my Windows Explorer and have to restart it, with an decent installer & uninstaller I would give it a try again.
Still don’t now which one to install although SoftPerfect RAM Disk 3.3.1 (Freeware) seems to be fast and the second SoftPerfect RAM Disk 3.3.1 (Freeware) looks also interesting.
Any advice is appreciated!
the second choice would be: Gavotte Ramdisk 1.1.0 (Freeware)
Buffalo Ramdisk is an interesting piece of software. It is a freeware, pretty fast and supports the OS invisible memory – interesting option for those who still use 32-bit Windows.
It can be downloaded from:
buffalo.jp/download/driver/memory/ramdisk.html
or it can be downloaded as a part of buffalo external drive utility pack:
buffalo-technology.com/en/download_file.php?r=8308
You “missed” ArchiCrypt Ramdisk: archicrypt.de/archicrypt_ultimate_ram_disk.html
I just wonder why the QSoft Ramdisk is not mentioned. According fiehnlab.ucdavis.edu/staff/kind/Collector/Benchmark/RamDisk/ramdisk-benchmarks.pdf , that one is the fastest.
Although that looks like a very thorough test, judging by the versions of the software used, I believe it’s around 3 years old and so wildly out of date. You can’t place any relevance in those benchmarks because just about all RAMDisks tested have been updated at least once since then and that can make a BIG difference to performance.
As to why QSoft Ramdisk isn’t included, we simply can’t and have no intention of testing every single piece of RAMDisk software out there. There’s a fair selection of free and commercial products included already and if one of them needs to be replaced, Qsoft will certainly be considered.
Just out of curiosity , I did concurrently benchmark the QSoft and the Dataram ramdisks.
System : dual Xeon with 16 GB RAM — Windows 8 Pro – 64 bit
B:\ Qsoft ramdisk – 3072 GB – FAT32
E:\ Dataram – 3072 MB ( because of the 4GB restriction ) – FAT32
The benchmarks were started at quasi the same time ( within the time to move and click the two start buttons ). By this , the benchmarks run concurrently on the disks with the same size and the same filesystem. I presume this the most accurate test one can perform.
The result can be found here : dl.free.fr/cwU0mefFI/benchmark3072.jpg
It shows that the QSoft ramdisk is “just” a bit faster in almost all test cases , although , the differences are minimal.
SoftPerfect RAM Disk 64-bit works perfectly for me on Win7 64.
Me too. I installed that one shortly after I read that it was updated and is freeware. Fastest RAMdisk software of them all. And it supports command-line interface :D
SoftPerfect RAM Disk 64-bit works perfectly for me on Win7 64.
i use a Phenom II X4 965 with 16GB DDR3 @1333Mhz
my Dawn of wars are copied in 20 seconds, and then its blazingly fast loaded ;)
Thanks Raymond!!!
Here is my results for Primo Ramdisk Pro, ImDisk, BondDisc and Gilisoft Ramdisk.
i46.tinypic.com/2hdb6hl.jpg
What system did you use to test? On my Phenom II X4 955 with 16GB DDR3 @1333Mhz, my Seq and 512k speeds are about half yours, although I more or less matched the other scores and exceeded your best 4k QD32 Write speed by a large amount (813 MB/s). I tested with DataRAM RAMdisk, RAMdisk Enterprise and Bond Disc. My Maxxmem Preview scores are below, perhaps you could share yours to compare?
Copy 10466 MB/s
Read 8107 MB/s
Write 6831 MB/s
Score 7.47GB/s
Latency 66.9 ns
Oh, I also tried the SoftPerfect RAMdisk and was able to create a 10GB NTFS RAMdisk but whilst copying a folder to it, it said it was unable to continue as the files were corrupt. Checking the RAMdisk showed that that the folder was now inaccessible and non delete-able and so I had to unmount the RAMdisk and re-mount it (now empty) to clear that problem. Trying again gave the same result so I gave up on that software. Same procedure had already worked fine with RAMdisk Enterprise but that has a lot more options to set
@ doveman: As I said up in the article, these tools appear to be heavily influenced by the way they’re coded which is why there sometimes seems to be big differences between software and also systems. My Maxxmem 1.99 scores are below:
Copy 21168 MB/s
Read 19418 MB/s
Write 18784 MB/s
Score 18.10 GB/s
Latency 52.4 ns
This probably confirms the point about software being the limiting factor, as these scores are much higher which comes through in the sequential and 512k scores, but your 4k QD32 score is much faster.
Update: DataRAM and Softperfect benchmarks have been updated for versions 4 and 3.3.1 respectively.
I’m not sure what you mean by software being the limiting factor but clearly your RAM speeds are 2-3 times faster than mine (which seems typical for modern Intel compared to AMD systems) and this is why your RAMdisks are also much faster.
By that I simply meant the RAMDisk software itself is obviously causing a bottleneck for me somewhere because as you say, my RAM scores are significantly better in Maxxmem.
As a result, you would expect ALL my scores to be better, but for some reason 4k write scores are way behind what yours are….
Ah yes, I see what you mean now. It does seem that the RAMDisk software isn’t taking full advantage of your RAM speeds when it comes to 4k speeds, as your Seq and 512k scores are about double mine in all the tests but your best 4k and 4k QD32 scores are about the same as I got with RAMDisk Enterprise, except for the 4k QD32 write, which I exceeded considerably.
My ImDisk scores compare strangely to yours (i.e. exceed all your 4k scores considerably) as well as you can see from these screenshots:
This is a 10GB NTFS IMDisk:
imageshack.us/photo/my-images/16/imdisk10gbntfscdm.png/
and this is a 10GB NTFS IMDisk using awealloc:
imageshack.us/photo/my-images/407/10gbawealloccdm.png/
I did test with CDM x64 though, so perhaps that’s worth you trying to see if it makes any difference.
Which memory, processor and motherboard you used? Can I ask it?
This issue with inaccessible folders has been fixed in the latest build 3.2.2. Thank you for your feedback.
I’ve got a Phenom X4 965 and getting similar scores as you on my G.Skill RAM. I’ve got 16Gb of it running in dual channel mode (it’s stock is 1600mhz but it’s at 1333).
I too am somewhat confused by this, changing the speeds of the RAM, increasing the speeds to stock, tightening the timings and increasing the NB frequancy improved the benchmark but not by that much.
At stock:
Copy: 10149
Read: 7924
Write: 6621
Score: 6.30
Latency 72.6 (units are the same as above)
I could get the timings to 7-7-7-21-2T on 1333Mhz which had an increase but it was unstable. The highest I got it was 1600Mhz on 8-9-8. I did a pre and post CPU OC and that had some impact, 600Mhz more increased my scores slightly so I am wondering if it is the chip holding it back. I wonder if these benchmarks are actually optimised for AMD systems.
SoftPerfect have released their RAM disk as freeware and are claiming to have done major optimisations in their product. What is anyone’s experience?
@ Wallaby: I have just rerun the test for the Softperfect freeware version and it’s MUCH quicker than the old shareware version :) Will hopefully upload the benchmark screenshot within the next 24hrs….
The problem with Bond Disc is that it cannot create RAM disks larger than 640 MB.
buffalo.jp/products/catalog/memory/speedup/ramdisk.html
Found another piece of RAM Disk software from Japan.
thanks man. very clear and straightforward
keep it up
With imdisk on my system (windows 7 64 with 12 GB of DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 CR1 ram and a core i7 950 at 4.2 ghz)
I get:Seq: 5830 7990512k: 5756 74744k: 1004 8644k qd32: 2020 1537
i55.tinypic.com/1y91y8.jpg
Excellent post! i keep it with DATARAM RAMdisk, which have the fastest read/write operations reported.
Thanks Ray.
oh, and its free up to 4 Geebees..
louis!
simple:YES
sophisticated:if your bios sees 4 gigs and your 32bit OS those 3.2-3.5(???)gigs you can use the rest for ramdisk. XP creates a pagefile even if not needed, so my estimate is: use 1GB for RamDisk and put page and temp+temporary internet there. I heard you can have your ramdisk saved to a hdd as files or a disk image(even iso) before shutdown or simultaneously when idling. This could even prevent fragmentation buildup issues caused by small cookies and temp.inet.files! and still spare your data usage when mobile or speeding up browser startup when having a bunch of tabs open.
I’m even considering somehow setting ramdisk as the default pagefile drive, but setting XP not to use one – XP will still use one, but not the equivalent amount of physical RAM, just around 0.3-0.5 GB, but it’s just guesswork yet, cause I didn’t really bother trying it out yet.
I will update as soon as done….
Great test (The only one that I know of,actually).
But question:why is everyone focusing on the Dataram solution when it’s only occupies the… sixth position in the benchmark ?
No feedback on the Qsoft RAMDrive Enterprise by any chance ?
Thank you.
PS:
classical question I guess but does a ram drive allow you to use the totality of the physical Ram available or only what Windows detects (Typically,3.2 GB on a 32 bits system when 4 GB are truly installed) ?
I Have tested Dataram RAMdisk with a 1GB Ramdisk. My result also much lower (300MB/s). Further I have testet the real life performance with several applications (Firefox, Photoshop, Gimp, VLC) and stopped the time of several processes. Result: the Ramdisk is not faster than my hard disk (Seagate, 60MB/s), often even slower.
I didn’t test the other Ramdisk programs, but Dataram is not worth the time to install…
I’m impressed by those scores. My CrystalMark score using a 5GB ramdrive created with DataRAM’s product was much lower, only 90MB/s.
Raymond,
Have you tried out SuperSpeed’s RamDisk (or RamDiskPlus) software? I was wondering how it compared to the other 12 versions you tested. It is not shareware or freeware, but I am still old school and believe you get what you pay for. The SuperSpeed version supports up to 512 GB of RAM disk, which is the sort of capability I need. Most of the others I’ve looked at only support “small” RamDisks. THANKS!
Yep, it has happened here also.
DataRam hasn’t been that successful all times in my experience either when load and particularly save the image down to disk. It has a feature for load the image to RAM when booting up but I haven’t noticed yet it work.
For instance the process can’t work when having explorer.exe running orelse it wont save and stop.
CleanMem I’ve tried too but have decided to not use it as it don’t have any GUI which makes it simple to use it.
Secondly, if you have problems to remember small details in how to handle all logs and batch-files, yes maybe there are better solutions to use.
Third, it mention how effective it is to clean the disk cache and how much there is to win by clean it.
That’s a myth, it wont make your computer faster in all situations out there.
After using it for some time, I can tell that DataRam ram disk has one big disadvantage. The Save/Load option is painfully slow. By slow I mean SLOW. I cannot even imagine how can it be so slow on modern machines.
Besides this, the product is OK – no crashes until now.
OMG !
You ARE GREAT!
I’ve been testing Flash Drive sticks using Crystal DiskMark and have found surprising results. Surprised their write speeds are so slow!
Second Life is a virtual 3D world you play on line – you can do anything, create anything, meet people, build worlds, play games – all in 3D photo realistic graphics.
Pumping all that graphics through high bandwidth to a fast CPU and even faster ATI or NVIDIA card is AMAZING!
BUT,
The Hard Drive is the slowest part of the whole system. Even with large amounts of GDDR5 graphics RAM, the virtual world viewer must cache data to the hard drive.
But now, I can use the RAMDisk from DataRAM,
and it is one of the fastest and FREE!
THANK YOU !
Thanks for testing each one of these RAM Disks, and publishing a great article.
This information is not only useful for gaming, but for any computationally intensive process – video processing, graphics rendering, etc.
Good Job!
i just tested my ramdisk from vsuite (little bit newer version), and numbers are higher :)
excellent report. I am using ImDisk as it is the only free one valid for xp64 (DataRAM & VSuite are 32b only) nb, ImDisk 1.2.4 – much faster now, 4k R/W = 425.7/409.9
If only DataRam support unmanaged RAM (3.2GB-4GB) on 32bit OS. For now I stay with superspeed ramdisk.
good idea for RAM disk. I used to play with RAM disk during my Win 2K times and now its time to revisit this type of software on my 4GB PC as things are slowing down a lot.
Well you have done it again. Another very nice article about something, most everyday users may not know properly about.
Welcome back, with a nicely written article.
Good review, Raymond!
Thank you very much Raymond and welcome back !
I did not yet tried this software (Dataram RAMDisk, the best free in your survey), but I will surely very soon…
I think that this may give very significant results…
wow. nice post raymond. maybe i’ll try it later. thanks for sharing.
very cool ray, thanks
Welcome back Ray, nice post too by the way
great tool , welcome back , raymond , we miss u , happy merry christmas in advance to you and to your family.,,,,,,,
#Hi Raymond!
Thanks for sharing this good tip.
Exciting see how much faster it is using the potential of the memory’s. Imagine this can become a big hit and good complement for other alternatives in a near future.
Impressing!
Nowadays it’s a cool trend among many to improve pc’s, together with as much memory they possible can..But how many has the knowledge in how to use it? instead of just have a bunch of GB installed memory in a passive way.
Then this solution is a very good alternative.
Nice to be back on the track. Now you introduced again another special tools and I think it will be very useful for my laptop.
Interesting stuff
Welcome Back Mr. Raymond !!!
As always, good article.
Welcome back Ray!!
Miss you man, Great tip, installing RAMDisk right away…
This is very useful test…
Thank you..
welcome back my friend. Thanks a lot for this new post.
Good post ray. Feeling good to see you back here.
Welocme back Reymond.
I missed your valuable expertise & tips.
You are doing great job man. Keep it up.
thanks ray
Hi,
Welcome back.
Best regards !
Thank you for this good Test Raymond!
I like ramdiscs and, many tools are new for me.
OMG Raymond!!! Do you know how valuable your ‘benchmarking’ article like this one??? You’re so cool man.. I love your work.. Keep it up.. :) Thanks
welcome back…
jezee mate, missed your useful tips and info and now that you are back, let’s rock, cheers!
I am glad to see you again on the site.welcome back.
welcome back..
nice tools..:)
Welcome back. Good to read your insights again.
Welcome back, I have missed your very valuable expertise. Thanks for this update, looks great. Keep it up.