Why use a RAM disk?

[ChrisGreaves]

Back in 1987 with a 640KB XT chassis and two 5.25" floppies a RAM disk made a lot of sense. I could copy PCWrite, PCCalc, and PCFile up there and have near-instant access while keeping two data floppies in the drives AND have memory to spare.
Some 35 years later I now have a Win11 HP15 laptop with an SSD, and am at step (48) of my installation prtocedure:
RAM drive Make sure CD drive letter is D and E is available before …Install Dataram_RAMDisk_V3.5.130RC13a.msi 60MB; From the T:\Maint shortcut Fat16. Configure to 1023MB then Start Ramdisk. I went into Disk management and changed the letter from D to E. Now “VERACRYPT.EXE" /Q /L T /V \DEVICE\HARDDISK1\PARTITION5”

From MSDos, and Win3.1 through Win10 I have installed a RAM disk.
What possible benefits remain for RAM disks?
(1) It is a great place to put the browser cache, except Help Desk script-readers don't believe me when I say that the cache is "cleared" every night.
(2) Other?

Thanks, Chris

[BobH]

My Dear Mr. Greaves,

I regret to inform you that your poll does not meet the high standards of Eileen's Lounge Scuttlebutt forum. It is, lamentably, lacking in covering all possible instances for answering.

Therefore, you must - FORTHWITH - amend the poll by adding, "What the (add expletive of your choice) is a RAM disk?"

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Scuttlebutt Thought Police

[Jay Freedman]

There's a reasonably thorough treatment of this question at https://www.howtogeek.com/171432/ram-di ... t-use-one/.

If your question came up long ago, you probably would have been advised to throw away the RAM disk software about the time you installed Windows 7.

[stuck]

...What possible benefits remain for RAM disks?...

None that I can think of, not even the ideas you mention.

Ken

[John Gray]

It would seem that the only functions of a RAM disk are:
a) to annoy Scuttlebutian participants
b) to keep Chris out of mischief
Of these, b) is undoubtedly the more valuable...

[StuartR]

I think you're all being unfair to Chris here. Any system based on floppy disks will run much faster if you copy all your frequently used files to a RAM disk. Just because you all have super fast SSD storage, you don't appreciate the delights of DOS, floppies, and RAM disks.

[stuck]

I think you're all being unfair to Chris here...

Umm, can't agree with you there. He was the one that asked:

...What possible benefits remain for RAM disks?...

[my emphasis on 'remain']



Ken

[StuartR]

[stuck]

PS I do appreciate the delights of DOS, Word for DOS and LOTUS 1-2-3. I wrote my Master's thesis using that combo on a PC that only had two 3.5" floppy disk drive, i.e. no HDD. I even managed that feat without the aid of a RAM disk

[ChrisGreaves]

There's a reasonably thorough treatment of this question at https://www.howtogeek.com/171432/ram-di ... t-use-one/.

Jay, thanks for this link. A well-written article. I note that Chris takes care to qualify his statements with “usually”, “most likely” and so on.

CH>>> Initially, this seems like it could help optimize performance. If you installed programs in a RAM disk, you’d have near-instant load times because their data would already be stored in the fastest memory possible.

This was my reason for using RAM disks some 35 years ago, as outlined in my comments on PCWrite. Then inertia takes over (below)

CH>>> So saving files to the RAM disk is pointless unless you don’t care that you’d lose the files — but if you didn’t care about the files, why save them in the first place?

Good logic and good question.
(a) Browser cache seems a fair answer. The cache is erased at re-boot.
(b) I make use of the RAM disk to store temporary data that I can easily re-create. For example data that is an interim stage in a process. Data created by an application, when the application needs to be restarted, it will be re-creating the temporary data anyway.
(c) Sensitive data. Were I to hold my passwords in a file, I could copy that file to RAM disk and close (securely) the original file, knowing that my sensitive copy will disappear at power-OFF
The same argument can be used for me remembering (in human memory) the rightmost digits of my meter reading each morning. I can always go back an re-read the meter, and once I have logged the reading in a spreadsheet, I no longer need the data in ((human) memory.

CH>>> Because RAM isn’t persistent, you’d also have to save the contents of your RAM disk to disk when you shut down your computer and load them when you turn it on.

This does not apply to my initial use of RAM disk. In that I was making a read-only copy of three applications.
Furthermore, running a session that went PCWrite, PCCalc, PCWrite, PCFile, PCCalc, and so on meant that I gained time with fast repeated loads from RAM and avoided removing a data disk, inserting a program disk, removing the program disk, and returning the data disk with attendant wear and tear on floppy disks, drives.

CH>>> When you turn on your computer, the RAM disk program would have to read the RAM disk image from your hard drive and load it back into RAM. In other words, you’re simply getting faster program-load times at the expense of longer boot-up times.

This is true only if I have a need to preserve data from my RAM disk (Which for me was never the case). By and large, longer boot times still don’t bother me, since I tend to power-ON, and then wander off to make a pot of tea. The boot sequence might take anything from one to five minutes as far as I am/was concerned. Boot times, to me, are the victim of Windows Update policies.

CH>>> You’ll want to save a copy of the RAM disk so you won’t lose the data if your computer ever goes down. Of course you’ll have to save a new image every time you update the files on the RAM disk.

True only if you are using a RAM disk as a substitute for slower long-term storage.

CH>>> You’d have to not care about any of these files and have no problem if you lose them.

Exactly. I write out a shopping list on a scrap of paper: Carrots, Potatoes, Soup- bones and head off to the store. Along the way I lose the scrap of paper. That, to me, is not a big deal. I remember using the last of the carrots to make soup, and the other two items come to mind. Since my pantry re-order level for flour is “three” and I’m down to two, is of little concern. I wanted to buy a third bag, but I can get it next week. My brain seems to erase short-term memory rapidly. I can't remember my shopping list from last Wednesday. And I don't care.

CH>>> This is a high bar to clear — most programs that have a cache you don’t necessarily care about will use RAM, anyway.

I believe that Audacity, to name one popular program, won’t store some data on a RAM disk; Project files for example. This annoys some users who have never saved a project file at all – we are the quick-edit to an MP3 brigade.

I might send Chris Hoffman this text. His article is well written and is but four years old.

For now I will probably install Data-RAM and use it for the browser-cache. That has been my primary use of a RAM disk for the past ten years.

Inertia: Since this is a human decision, human policies come into play. I love variety but hate change. I have many years of automated steps that take place during my day, from the boot-sequence to application code that used slow hard drives back in 1997 (perhaps further). I can't see me modifying a 2,000- line VBA application to drop the use of a RAM drive and store interim data on an SSD, when from time to time I would feel inclined to clear out the temporary area on the SSD!

Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Of these, b) is undoubtedly the more valuable...

John, your homework assignment is posted immediately above this Reply.
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I think you're all being unfair to Chris here. Any system based on floppy disks will run much faster if you copy all your frequently used files to a RAM disk. Just because you all have super fast SSD storage, you don't appreciate the delights of DOS, floppies, and RAM disks.

Stuart, thanks for the support.
At least I think it was support.
If you had gotten as far as "80-column punched cards" and "knitting by candlelight" I'd have felt that you were taking the mickey out of me

It really did make a difference on a 64K XT-chassis

Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

ed:

...What possible benefits remain for RAM disks?...

[my emphasis on 'remain']

Hi Ken. It was in a period of self-examination that I posted the question. Jay's link to Chris Hoiffman's article and the responses to date have clarified my thoughts.
Two basic benefits remain:-
(1) Browser Cache
(2) Inertia. The old dictum "If it ain't broke don't fix it" describes how I feel about going back and editing VBA code that makes use of RAM disk.
We have all met inertia in Businesses, and for a good reason. The IT-manager just wants to get the payroll out without worrying about recent changes.
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

PS I do appreciate the delights of DOS, Word for DOS and LOTUS 1-2-3. I wrote my Master's thesis using that combo on a PC that only had two 3.5" floppy disk drive, i.e. no HDD. I even managed that feat without the aid of a RAM disk

Three and a half inch floppies?!! Ee tha wur lucky. We 'ad to mek do wi' a ...(segue into Four Yorkshire-men)

Seriously, I fancy that 3.5 s were about three times the speed of 5.25 s, if only because you could just stab them at the chassis without fear of losing your data if you missed!

I purchased a 20MB hard drive and bolted it into the chassis.
When my wife left she took the chassis because "she had paid for it", but I had already taken out the 20MB because ***I*** had paid for that.
Four hundred dollars.
Canadian.
1987 dollars, too!

I figured I could live without a wife, but not without a hard drive.

Cheers, Chris

[StuartR]

(2) Inertia. The old dictum "If it ain't broke don't fix it" describes how I feel about going back and editing VBA code that makes use of RAM disk.
We have all met inertia in Businesses, and for a good reason. The IT-manager just wants to get the payroll out without worrying about recent changes

This is how technical debt builds up. Leading to complex systems that nobody dares make any changes to, and that nobody can fix when they break!

[ChrisGreaves]

This is how technical debt builds up. Leading to complex systems that nobody dares make any changes to, and that nobody can fix when they break!

I know!
There was a firm called "Scaffolding Great Britain" down on Willow Lane in Mitcham Junction. They had a payroll system on an ICL 1903A. For the seven years prior to 1`978 the 8-hour run had been maintained by contract programmers who had not documented their efforts.
I enjoyed that Gig so much that I eagerly accepted others like it!
Cheers, Chris

[stuck]

...Two basic benefits remain:-
(1) Browser Cache
(2) Inertia. The old dictum "If it ain't broke don't fix it"...

OK, I'll give you the second one but still disagree about the first one since you can achieve the same end result by simply running Firefox in 'private browsing' mode. Or run Ccleaner at the end of the day.

Ken

[Jay Freedman]

...Two basic benefits remain:-
(1) Browser Cache
(2) Inertia. The old dictum "If it ain't broke don't fix it"...

OK, I'll give you the second one but still disagree about the first one since you can achieve the same end result by simply running Firefox in 'private browsing' mode. Or run Ccleaner at the end of the day.

Ken

Microsoft Edge and probably most browsers that are based on Chromium, including my favorite Brave, include a setting that automatically clears the cache on exiting the program. Every time, no hands. As far as I can tell, Firefox offers only a manual cache clearing command in the Settings, which is easy to forget.

[Jay Freedman]

This is how technical debt builds up. Leading to complex systems that nobody dares make any changes to, and that nobody can fix when they break!

I know!
There was a firm called "Scaffolding Great Britain" down on Willow Lane in Mitcham Junction. They had a payroll system on an ICL 1903A. For the seven years prior to 1`978 the 8-hour run had been maintained by contract programmers who had not documented their efforts.
I enjoyed that Gig so much that I eagerly accepted others like it!
Cheers, Chris

When I went to work at Burroughs in 1985, just before the merger with Sperry that formed Unisys, one of my assignments was maintenance of a network configuration utility for Burroughs mainframes that had been in use since the mid-70s and continually updated as more and more settings were added to the various networking protocols. At that time, TCPIP was a minor player behind IBM's System Network Architecture (SNA) and a bunch of other proprietary protocols, and we tried to configure a half dozen of them. Fifteen years later, all the other engineers who worked on the configuration program had retired, been laid off, or left for greener pastures, and I was the one-and-only. For the year before I retired, I trained a crew of programmers in Bangalore on most of the weird stuff in the program. As far as I know, it's still in use.

[DocAElstein]

Microsoft Edge and probably most browsers that are based on Chromium, including my favorite Brave, include a setting that automatically clears the cache on exiting the program. Every time, no hands. As far as I can tell, Firefox offers only a manual cache clearing command in the Settings, which is easy to forget.

Hello,
I hope you that know me, or you that just ignore me based on my ignorance, don’t pay any atention to this post, or any of my posts.. This is just my 1 in 10 chance that it might be relevant , that’s all.
It could be a red herring, or might be relevant, that’s all.

….I got two older expensive computers rotting in my garden, which is almost as cold as Chris Greave’s garden. They were given to me by neighbours , some of those that like me.
( windows 7 machines)
They had to trash them. They thought I could help them. I could not at the time . I have No idea why they thoughts I could .
The problem was: Just like one of my older computers , (a problem that the best computer expert in our town could not sort out), the memory kept getting filled up until the computer was crippled. I know what to do now. It was a problem caused by Firefox Browser storing so much. CCleaner never touched the problem, or barely, maybe sometimes , at first. . BeachBit was a bit better, but BleachBit is dangerous to use if you are not familiar with it, initially.
( the problem is: Firefox stores a lot of stuff. The manual cache clearing in Firefox, cures the crippling memory problem, but that also sometimes causes problems on older machines that I can only solve by some PowerShell commands )
Alan