RAMDISK- noob needs help!

[omaha]

Not sure if this is the right place for it, so i x posted it as well

I read on the forums, that using a ramdisk is really good and fast for anything that is often used.

I have three or four programs that i constantly use, and, on windows, they seem to occupy only 12mb 56mb and 100mb or so

I have xp, with 3 gig of ram (overkill, but hey, why not?) and i am thinking about using 1gig or so as a ramdisk

Problem is, i havent found much info out there (that a retardo noob like me) can understand

I am looking for something that is freeware/shareware, and i assume that what i am doing is really at the bottom end of ramdisking

Do i have to transfer the folders into ram each time i want to use them? Or, do they boot up automatically?

Ideally, i would want to be able to boot up normally, then press a button or two, and get three of these programs into ram

Am i on the right track?

Have i missed anything?

Any pitfalls i need to watch out for?

All help much appreciated!

 

[omaha]

bump

 

[evongugg]

This product is about two years old:

Gigabyte's i-RAM storage device
RAM disk without the fuss

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312

 

[zenmaster]

Does it work on Vista 64?

 

[evongugg]

Yes, RamDisk works on Vista 64:

•Windows XP, 32- and 64-bit (x64 and Itanium-based) ( both Editions)
•Windows Vista, 32 - and 64-bit (x64 and Itanium-based) (all Editions)
•Windows 2000 is NOT supported

 

[nukemaster]

I am going to agree with supremelaw on this one...I my self have thought of iRAM(don't sue me apple) but at 50$(200 for 4 gigs) per 1 gig stick and a 4 gig max per card(the cards is about $150, less on sale). i decided against it....when for 100$ i get 4 gigs of DDR2 800 4,4,4,12(or is it 10).

I still look at it when i see it on sale After all a PC with 8 gigs of ram + one of those for scratch space would be cool.....but for the programs you run....ramdisk is best

 

[geofelt]

I also have been interested in this. I recently downloaded a trial version of farstone's ramdisk product. http://www.farstone.com/software/virtual-hard-drive.htm It sells for $29.99, but you get a 25% discount if you buy the downloaded product within a week. I installed it on vista home premium-64 with no problems, and put the browser cache on it. It all seems to work well, but I need to test it some more. There are options to save the ramdisk contents and load them at startup. That should be fine for your intended use.

The web site suggests other uses which I need to look into.

For other posters on this subject, I would like to hear about any other suggestions for good ramdisk usage. At <$80 for 4gb, it is certainly cheap enough.