RAMDisk on Studio 1535, Vista 32-bit

[Xiphias]

Might as well outline what I did. Picked up a 2Gb stick of Patriot RAM for my Studio 15, boosting total RAM in the laptop to 4 Gb. Vistax86 can only use 3.5Gb (Task Manager showed 3518 Mb capable of being addressed, to be exact) of it, and since I plan to move to a 64-bit OS when Windows 7 SP1 comes out, I'm in a situation where I have 500 Mb of unused RAM in my setup.

I decided to use the remaining memory as a RAMDisk. Downloaded and installed DataRam's RAMDisk beta (http://www.cenatek.com/product_page_...load_list.php), a tool recommended in the OCZ forums as part of a series of tweaks for Jmicron SSDs. DataRAM beta allows me to use the 500 Mb of unaddressed RAM in a 32-bit OS, and also has the options of saving/loading an image of RAM on shutdown and startup, as well as periodically saving an image of the RAMdisk to the hard-drive at user-determined intervals (every 5 minutes, for example).

Booted up DataRAM configuration after installation, set up a 500 Mb RAMdisk on the "Settings" page, and under the "Load and Save" tab adjusted for the following settings.



Proceeded to Vista's Disk Management page (Right click My Computers, Manage, Disk Management), initialized then formatted the RAMDisk to NTFS. Rebooted.

I then changed/redirected the path of Vista's temp files and stuff to the RAMDisk, through the System Properties page (Right Click My Computers, Properties, go to Advanced Settings, and under the Advanced tab click Environmental Variables. Change the paths of TEMP and TMP in the "User Variables for..." box).

Firefox 3's cache has also been redirected to my RAMdisk.

Advantages
- Faster access to temporary system and internet files
- Decreased fragmentation of the HDD

Disadvantages
- Increased boot-time as RAM image loads to RAMdisk
- Increased shut-down time as RAMdisk saves to image
- Increased RAM usage under Vista: running the RAMdisk alone used ~200-300 Mb of the 3.5Gb that Vista is using

Other things to load to RAMdisk

Any ideas?

[KingRaptor]

Just get vista x64. your license should let you use either x86 or x64 (just not at the same time)

[Xiphias]

Just get vista x64. your license should let you use either x86 or x64 (just not at the same time)

I know, and I definitely plan to when I have the time. I don't really have the time to acquire a 64-bit Vista disk and be bothered with the whole installation of it currently, so...yeah.

Thanks though.

[KingRaptor]

Oh well i dont know much about RAMdisk but if you can get it to work, it sounds like a good boost compared to using the hdd for temp files.

[xxbadboys93]

I have the 32bit os of vista homepremium, can i get the 64bit if i switch product keys.

Also is it bad to mix ram. Because I have 1 2gb and 1 1gb stick. with a cas of 6. If i put in a another 2gb (cas5) of ram and take out the 1 gb is it bad.