Why use a RAM disk?

[HansV]

Firefox can clear history, cookies etc. automatically (Tools > Settings > Privacy and Security):

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[ChrisGreaves]

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.

Hi Ken. I absolutely agree with your suggestions as to how one might deal with cache at the end of the day - today - but Dear Old Inertia wins in the end. Because I had initially decided to employ the RAM disk (already in-situ for another reason) for browser-cache, and that works, I am unlikely to change it.
After all, "It works!", and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
My documentation under "T:\Greaves\Admin\Rebuild" goes back only as far as 2002, which suggests I was using DataRam or RamDisk.sys back then. Twenty years, at least, of effective solution.

There is no doubt in my mind that if, today, I was setting up my first computer system, I would post here and ask for pointers as to the best way to flush cache, but as Stuart pointed out, I have a technical debt, always in my mind are the number of help-desk conversations I have cut short by knowing that my cache was completely flushed when i powered off the night before.

From another point of view, it appears that I might have been concerned about flushing browser-cache at least twenty years ago, which put me ahead of the common browser crowd back then.

Back in the poll, there is but one count for "I used a RAM disk until my SSD arrived". Guess who?!!

Cheers, Chris

[StuartR]

I have moved posts about Mozilla Firefox from this topic to a new thread in the Mozilla Firefox forum

[Jay Freedman]

I answered "Other" to the poll. Specifically, I used a RAM disk until about 25 years ago, when I no longer needed to use any programs that were stored on floppy disks.

[ChrisGreaves]

I answered "Other" to the poll. Specifically, I used a RAM disk until about 25 years ago, when I no longer needed to use any programs that were stored on floppy disks.

Good stuff (and yes, an incomplete list of poll opportunities)
So, providing that I refrain my using a RAM disk on the new HP15 laptop, Eileen's Lounge can brag about being done with RAM disks!

Although I suspect that an SSD is, when you get down to it, a HUGE RAM disk,

Cheers, Chris

[HansV]

A RAM disk is volatile - it disappears when you power down the computer.
An SSD is permanent storage, like a hard disk.

[ChrisGreaves]

A RAM disk is volatile - it disappears when you power down the computer.
An SSD is permanent storage, like a hard disk.

Quite So!
When I wrote "I suspect that an SSD is, when you get down to it, a HUGE RAM disk," I was thinking of the speed factor.
My first use of a RAM disk was speed - loading DOS programs from RAM rather than from floppy.
Now when I load programs, they load not from slow-spinning rotating drives (10 seeks per second) , but from a form of memory whose speed has to be at least comparable to Core/transistor memories of the 1960s (3 to 11 microseconds)
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

OK, I'll give you the second one but still disagree about the first one ...

Ken, I found more legacy code yesterday.
I have a little system that loads images FROM a camera/phone, and runs them through VSOImageResizer, loads them into a document (but only those images timestamped AFTER the youngest image in the document) ...
The interim stage where the images must be re-sized loads the images into - (in VBA strcRamDisk) - a drive known as "E:\", sadly hard-wired.
I don't want to go through the business of creating a temporary folder on my SSD and then deleting it; as RAM disk is so convenient as a scratch-pad.

This is but one of the legacy features on my system, going back as long as I have been using a digital camera, a.k.a. T:\Pers\Canon\Camera\2005\2005_05\2005_05_28 or thereabouts.

Let's agree to "Sigh!" together, albeit for different reasons.
Cheers, Chris