2 replies to this topic

[Azev]

Hey guys!

ImDisk Ramdisk is faster than any other HDD/SSD on the market.

Here are my 4 use cases for it:

 

 

1. Temp folder

 

Placing %temp% folders into a ImDisk Ramdisk not only makes your system faster but also increases the lifespan of your SSD. SSDs wear off with the cycles (I/O). %temp% folder is speacially aggressive on I/O. ImDisk is perfect for that. I also link other folders that are heavy on I/O to R:\

 

 

2. Firefox/Chrome profile folders

 

I also have an ImDisk Ramdisk on Y:\  (256Mb) to hold my browsers' profile folder. For example:

mklink /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles" "Y:\Mozilla Firefox"
mklink /D "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome" "Y:\Google Chrome"

Does the trick.

 

Advantages are:

- SSD spanlife increased. You would be amazed on how much I/O browsers do to your SSD. Thats exhaustive for the SSD and decreases spanlife.

- I have all my browsers profiles in one file dumped to D:\data\profiles.img (SSD) every 1hr.

rawcopy -mldD \\.\Y: "D:\data\profiles.img"

- Browsing speed increased++

 

 

3. IP CAMs (CCTV) video dump

 

Here ImDisk Ramdisk is the perfect buffer.

 

My home IP cams are set to dump videos to an FTP server. Guess where the FTP is... W:\ ImDisk Ramdisk .

Faster than any retail HDD meant for CCTV. No DVR on the market can match the storing speed of ImDisk Ramdisk.

I wrote a simple batch script to collect (every 1hr) the dumps from W:\ (freeing space) to a USB pen drive (which is very slow and can't cope with IP cams demand)

 

Advantages:

- No need to spend with expensive DVR / HDD.

- I got all my cams videos in one pen drive.

 

 

4. Loading and playing videos from external HDDs

 

I have a collection of movies on my external 4Tb HDD. We all know external HDD cases can heat up to 48°C easily (specially in my country) with just a few minutes of HDD spinning. That's because HDD cases have no hot air dissipation like CPU cases. (CPU cases are made of metal, which dissipates the heat of HDDs). HDD high temperatures can damage the hardware and compromise the data.

So I wrote a script to allocate an ImDisk Ramdisk to the size of the movie file, then copy the movie to it (which takes about 1min) then start the playback.
 

Advantages:

- HDD temperature is kept low, no HDD spinning noise while watching the movie, energy save.

- The external HDD case can be unplugged since it is no longer being used.

 

 

Intel Nuc and ImDisk Ramdisk is the perfect marriage.

 

So, what else? Where do you guys use ImDisk Ramdisk?

Edited by Azev, 22 September 2020 - 02:48 PM.

[Azev]

I forgot to mention that rawcopy is smart, so it will only write to the profiles image the changed data instead of writting the whole ramdisk. Minimal SSD I/O.

rawcopy -mldD \\.\Y: "D:\data\profiles.img"

Mounting (Windows startup):

imdisk -a -t vm -f "D:\data\profiles.img" -m Y:

 

Edited by Azev, 22 September 2020 - 04:15 PM.

[Rootman]

I use mine for Temp storage too, only for the USER temp folder not the system, so I never commit the changes.

 

I also have a couple of media streaming apps that write their streaming data to disk while transcoding, on more than one occasion one of them has orphaned gigs of files, pointing it towards a RAM disk allows me to dump them instantly on every boot. 

 

One other small usage, my laptop running Windows 10 insists on mounting any new USB drive as drive D: when it's open, instead of drive F: where i need it.  So I made a small RAM disk and set it as D: to always make sure D: is taken.  I could do this a few other ways, but this allows me to drive the temp folder to it as well.