Free Ramdisk for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and 2003 Server
- Parameters registry is
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RRamdisk\Parameters\
Why RRamdisk? Because XP SP1 contain a Ramdisk driver for XP Embeded.
- Parameter: DiskSizeM, DiskSizeK
Your desired disk size, the unit is M bytes or K bytes. The DiskSizeK has higher priority.
- Parameter: MediaType
The reported drive type:
1 — RAM Drive
2 — Fixed Media (default)
3 — Removable Media
4 — Floppy Diskette - Parameter: DriveLetter
Name say it is, default is R:
- Parameter: SectorsPerCluster
Your desired cluster size, zero for driver pickup:
<= 2M FAT12, cluster=512
<= 32M FAT16, cluster=512
<= 64M FAT16, cluster=1k
<= 128M FAT16, cluster=2k
<= 256M FAT16, cluster=4k
<= 512M FAT32, cluster=2k
<= 16G FAT32, cluster=4k
and more...You can specify smaller cluster size, force pre-format as FAT32.
- Parameter: Image
Maintained by rdutil utlilty, mainly for preload NTFS image. Eg:
- Load ramdisk, don’t write anything.
- Format the ramdisk
FORMAT /FS:NTFS /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:
- Adjust logfile to minimum size
CHKDSK /L:2048 R:
- Reset access rights
CACLS R:\ /G: BUILTIN\Adminstrators:F
- Create necessary structure
MKDIR R:\TEMP
- Pack the disk image and save to registry
rdutil R: registry
Notes:
- You should leave RamDisk as clean as possible before packing, the max packed image size is 64K.
- The disk image only valid to same RamDisk size, you should re-create disk image when size changed.
- The driver internal formater will disable if this registry present, corrupt/size-mismatch value leave an un-formated disk.
rdutil Utlility Usage:
- Backup registry image
rdutil save filename
- Restore registry image
rdutil load filename
- Report packed image size
rdutil R:
rdutil registry
rdutil unpacked_fileSecond command reading DriveLetter from registry, while the third is packing an unpacked image file.
- Packing image & save to registry
rdutil R: registry
- Packing image & save to file
rdutil R: packed_file
- Unpacking image
rdutil unpack packed_file unpacked_file
- Link NTFS junction to Ramdisk
rdutil link temp \
- You can re-format RamDisk except RAMDrive media type. Eg:
FixedMedia type:
FORMAT /FS:NTFS /FORCE /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:RemovableMedia type:
ECHO Y | FORMAT /FS:NTFS /FORCE /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:You can place your format command to startup script. I don’t recommend re-format to FAT, the pre-formated RamDisk is more efficient than other format utililty.
- Pagefile support - You can set pagefile to FixMedia type disk w/ pre-formated system. If you need other MediaType or re-format, use the addswap.exe utility:
addswap r:\pagefile.sys 16 32
Create pagefile r:\pagefile.sys with min=16M max=32M.
- TEMP directory - You should set TEMP/TMP directory to TEMP sub-directory, don’t use the root directory.
- NTFS junction point to RAMDrive - You can’t create NTFS junction point to RAMDrive media type, Fixed & Removable Media type should work.
- Connectix VirtualPC compatibility - Someone report problem with VirtualPC+physical volume/disk. Please set MediaType to RAMDrive/Removable.
- Mountpoint without DriveLetter
Clear DriveLetter registry value will not create Drive Letter for Ramdisk.
Attn. Don’t delete the DriveLetter registry, which fall to default R:. You can setup mountpoint/junction linking to this unnamed Ramdisk. Eg:
rdutil link C:\ramdisk
link C:\ramdisk to root of Ramdiskrdutil link C:\TEMP TEMP
link C:\TEMP to \TEMP at Ramdiskrmdir C:\ramdisk
rmdir can remove the link without clear target contentNoDriveLetter configuration isn’t recommended, because most AntiVirus software cannot realtime scan Volume w/o Drive Letter.
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Entries (RSS)
September 28th, 2008 05:16
[...] Posted by Lukeatluke How? RamDisk __________________ [...]
September 20th, 2008 04:28
[...] 2GB RAM and set 512MB for Ramdisk using Gavotte’s ramdisk app to shunt temporary internet files onto, instead of my SSD Bookmark [...]
August 22nd, 2008 16:13
not working with Vista x64 here…
August 20th, 2008 16:35
Hi there again. As posted earlier I have a very good working Vista 64 with 8G of RAM with paging file disabled, Quad Extreme 3Ghz. All of the paging is disabled on all of my disks… My machine keeps running very good. I can multitask between games and reget and music library and pokertracker…. and so on.
Still as pointed out in a lot of articles my system does not get beyond 3G of RAM usage when I check the logs…. So I have like about, more or less, 3G of ram which I would like to assign to a “removable” drive and put readyboost on it…
Problem:
1. I cannot install the ramdrive, it just says failed. I tried with the admin privilige.
2. It seems that the ramdrive cannot be set to act like “removable” media like USB stick.
To speed up my system i’m looking for some High Perf USB memory. Preferably 8G.
August 20th, 2008 06:47
sorry… I am on XP SP3 32bit.
August 20th, 2008 05:47
I just tried to use the program and it gave me a blue screen of death with a ’stop’ error. I selected 256MB and then the computer died. Can anyone help?
thanks.
August 18th, 2008 18:06
Phil,
You may be referring to “executive paging” - you can control whether the kernel mode drivers and code has to be swapped. See here:
Disable paging the executive to improve performance
http://www.metron.co.uk/reference/performance_tips/windows/win_tip23.html
August 18th, 2008 02:25
Putting the swapfile on RAMdrive will probably give a speed improvement, because Windows stupidly swaps parts of the kernel out ALL THE TIME, regardless of how much RAM you have available.
However, as Dan pointed out, it’s better to disable the swap partition. Putting it on the RAMdrive could crash your system if you use up your RAM.
August 18th, 2008 02:14
Warning: I stupidly tried to make a ramdrive of 3G, since I have 6G RAM, forgetting that Windows makes only a max of 3G available to processes.
Instead of giving a warning, it shut the computer off, and it wouldn’t boot again until I said to boot with last usable configuration.
If you haven’t put /3gb in your boot.ini, this would presumably happen if you tried to make a 2G ramdrive.
August 16th, 2008 10:45
[...] Install a Ramdisk Download it here. It’s free and has a gui. Set it to about 192-384mb depending how much you plan to use for [...]
August 13th, 2008 00:00
Yojimbo,
except for the author of the post and a user that says he wants to put the swap in the ramdrive, nobody else recommend it. Putting swap file on ramdrive will be actually counter productive as CPU usage is going to increase. If you have plenty of RAM, rather than put the swap file in a ramdrive better disable virtual memory altogether.
Dan
August 12th, 2008 21:17
I don’t understand???
Many of you are saying that you put your swapfile on ramdisk which is not logical, because when your system eats all the ram then it use swapfile(fake, hard disk memory) and if the swapfile is on ramdisk then … error, error, error …
July 28th, 2008 21:56
UPS,
try running the app ‘as administrator’, otherwise it will keep you prompted for reboot and do nothing.
July 24th, 2008 11:14
Hmm. A small note.
DON’T USE A DISK SIZE OTHER THAN THE ONES IN THE LIST! It’s typeable, but if you enter, say, “1.25G”, it’ll promptly take your whole computer down with a blue screen.
Worse, if you aren’t lucky, your computer won’t even start back up - I’m guessing because those settings were saved and it tries again when you try booting! Ouch. Ouch ouch.
Other than that, well, it works fine - I just wish I could write in my own RAM disk size. It’s happily granular up to the 1G point, but then they start jumping obscenely high like 2G and 4G, etc… and there’s no in between. I needed a 1.25GB disk because 1.0 was too small and I needed the extra 256mb to work in… =(
But thanks for the tool anyway!
July 24th, 2008 09:55
OH MY GOD!
This is the best tool I’ve added to my collection in a long time!
I was Googling for a ram disk, but as noted, all I found was garbage payware RAM disk tools (whatever happened to a RAM disk that came with MS-DOS, Microsoft?). I was about to shell out $8 for a payware RAM disk driver that I couldn’t even tell worked, until I smacked my head straight and googled for “ram disk freeware”!
Now where can I donate those $8? This tool is perfect!
July 24th, 2008 05:49
Oh my god, whatever you use for your translations. Throw it away! The german translation is one of the worst that I’ve ever seen!
July 22nd, 2008 02:18
[...] I am running this from an XP virtual machine with the ram disk that is available for free from here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/ [...]
July 15th, 2008 04:23
someone asked it before, but did not get an answer i think: is there any way to load the image to the ram disk without using the GUI provided? i would like to write the image at shutdown and load the image (already possible) at startup.
July 12th, 2008 05:10
How can I uninstall it under Vista?
I tried uninstall, it says reboot needed. before reboot rams disk seems deleted but after reboot it is back again.
Any ideas?