# Solved: Speed up Firefox 5 w/ramdisk



## pcuser1 (Jun 30, 2011)

I recently installed Dataram's Ramdisk 3.5 (the free one for up to a 4 GB ramdisk) and then installed Firefox 5 to the new ramdisk. The speed increase was incredible to say the least. I also used the ramdisk to put a 1 GB Win 7 x64 Ult swap file on it (that runs in ram) and it made a huge difference in my Office document load speeds. I only have 4 GB ram so I had to stick with 1 a GB ramdrive to feel safe. Anyone else ever tried this?


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

It does seem a little strange to use RAM for a Windows swapfile being as the point of the swapfile is to act as EXTRA RAM when the system is running out of REAL RAM.


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## pcuser1 (Jun 30, 2011)

I guess it's kinda like a small and fairly inexpensive ssd drive....


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

No, you missed the point!
It is rather silly to use a RAMDISK for the Windows swapfile.
The point of the swapfile is that it is used when you are short of RAM so it is rather pointless reducing the amount of RAM available to Windows in order to create a RAMDISK that will used when you are short of RAM.


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## pcuser1 (Jun 30, 2011)

hummm... Assuming ram is faster than a hard drive (seek time etc.).. lets see... choice 1, use a hard drive to emulate ram, choice 2 use a ramdisk (runs in ram so no hard drive) Your choice. Please make a good one !


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## pcuser1 (Jun 30, 2011)

If you doubt the benefit of a ram disk to help a Win swap file, then try it on a substitute box and see if it works for you... Granted, RamDisk 3.5 is not easy to get working... I spent about an hour to get it. I'm not a super user but it works if you try it.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

pcuser1 said:


> I guess it's kinda like a small and fairly inexpensive ssd drive....


Sorry, I don't see that comparison.
A ram drive is merely a virtual drive in RAM that saves nothing when the computer is off.
Every time you restart the computer, you have to reload from a hard drive or solid state drive, the app you want to run.



pcuser1 said:


> hummm... Assuming ram is faster than a hard drive (seek time etc.).. lets see... choice 1, use a hard drive to emulate ram, choice 2 use a ramdisk (runs in ram so no hard drive) Your choice. Please make a good one !


If you are having issues of your computer paging the hard drive and slowing down your computer, doesn't it make more sense to address that first?

Anyway, wouldn't it be a more efficient use of memory to use a solid state drive so paging is done in it's memory rather than the computer's RAM?


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

> hummm... Assuming ram is faster than a hard drive (seek time etc.).. lets see... choice 1, use a hard drive to emulate ram, choice 2 use a ramdisk (runs in ram so no hard drive) Your choice. Please make a good one !


I would prefer to use the RAM as real memory and not need Virtual Memory at all. Why introduce the extra level of software? If your computer doesn't have enough RAM that it needs a swap file, it certainly doesn't have enough to reduce the available Ram to use some as a Ramdisk.


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