A minor hardware upgrade can have a major impact. Adding RAM to your PC may help cut back on writes to your SSD, potentially increasing its lifespan. In fact, our benchmarks reveal up to a 63% reduction with 16 GB of DDR3 memory compared to 4 GB.
There are a number of different hardware upgrades capable of speeding up an aging PC. A new processor does the trick, though many times that turns into a new motherboard, new memory, and often a new power supply, too. An add-in graphics card is often the answer, particularly if you're a gamer. But two of the easiest and most effective purchases are an SSD and more system memory.
Switching over from a mechanical disk to solid-state storage is probably the most effective way to really feel your system get faster. However, adding RAM can also cut down on boot-up time, make applications start faster, and keep more programs open at a time without a big performance hit. The ability to fit more data into memory means your CPU will make fewer trips out to the slower tier of user storage for the information it needs.
But what if your machine already boasts an SSD? Will adding RAM still help, accelerating it further? Or can you save the cost and sink it into a higher-end GPU down the road? How much does more memory affect write operations? We're taking a closer look at those questions by repeatedly running our benchmark suite on an SSD-equipped machine, while varying the amount of RAM installed.
The result took us by surprise. In essence, there is no such thing as too much memory in a desktop with solid-state storage. The more RAM you add, the better off endurance looks, and the more I/O performance you get from the storage subsystem.
I think the test in this article all high memory usage apps, the average reduction of disk write may be lower/none in light workload...
And also what the effect if the page/swap files is moved to hdd (not in the ssd) in some computer configuration (like mine)....
Considering that 4GB of DDR2 used to cost ($250) you can easily get 32GB of DDR3. And it will go down again with DDR4 since DDR4 should have 16GB sticks in mass.
I think the test in this article all high memory usage apps, the average reduction of disk write may be lower/none in light workload...
And also what the effect if the page/swap files is moved to hdd (not in the ssd) in some computer configuration (like mine)....
Considering that 4GB of DDR2 used to cost ($250) you can easily get 32GB of DDR3. And it will go down again with DDR4 since DDR4 should have 16GB sticks in mass.
How does this relate to my statement? I know RAM was expensive when they first came out, but over the last 6-8 months time frame RAM has more than doubled in price, so your point is just moot as far as this article is concerned, IMHO.
Put it on your data drive instead. Although it is slower if you have enough RAM it won't be a problem.
I have 24GB of RAM in my workstation at work. I don't have an SSD, just two HDDs. What I've done to get a NOTICEABLE improvement in responsiveness is to create a 4GB RAM drive (I use RAMDisk from Dataram,) set it up to be present at boot and set both my user and system temp environment variables to point to the RAM drive.
Most importantly, I've set my swap file to 16MB and put the swap file on the RAM drive too.
Both reads and writes are down from both HDDs. Do you have time to test this type of arrangement and perhaps update the article please because I feel that this setup is a very good use of a large amount of RAM?
Also, I see there being a difference between single and dual channel.
After web browsing with 10 tabs open, playing World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike: GO, I have 3562 total, 1318 cached, 1421 available, and 122 free. That's 60% used and 40% available.
Can somebody with 8 and 16GB post their results with similar usage? It would be interesting to see if the cached value changes.
Put it on your data drive instead. Although it is slower if you have enough RAM it won't be a problem.
Why bother getting an SSD if you are going to not use it? Wearing out is usually rather exaggerated in its relevance.
I am , I seriously am.............................