Virtual Hard Drive

[Leo Graywacz]

Is there a way to make a virtual hard drive, using ram memory as a temporary HD, and run eCabs within it? Was hoping to try to speed things up.

[Bryan J Tanner]

I may be just missing something, but if you've got that much RAM ecabinets wont need to access the virtual memory. That is the speed killer.

[jason galbraith]

You could try getting a solid state hard drive, which should be quicker than a normal drive, even a WD raptor, but no, i don't think you'll be able to do what you are after just using your RAM. In vista, you can use your memory stick as a speed boost, but don't know if that will help either

[DanEpps]

Is there a way to make a virtual hard drive, using ram memory as a temporary HD, and run eCabs within it? Was hoping to try to speed things up.

Since eCabinets has to be installed to a static path, I wouldn't think this is possible. Do you have virtual memory set to a static size or do you "let Windows decide?"

I may be just missing something, but if you've got that much RAM ecabinets wont need to access the virtual memory. That is the speed killer.

Accessing virtual memory is not the problem, expanding virtual memory is a problem. This is why you should set virtual memory to 3072MB minimum and 4096MB maximum.

You could try getting a solid state hard drive, which should be quicker than a normal drive, even a WD raptor, but no, i don't think you'll be able to do what you are after just using your RAM. In vista, you can use your memory stick as a speed boost, but don't know if that will help either

SSDs typically have very low capacities...40-60GB. The WD Raptor is not an SSD, it is a 10,000 RPM internal disk. Using a memory stick to boost Vista performance only works for storing the working set when the system goes into hibernation. Vista can look for the contents of RAM on a memory stick when returning from hibernation.

[Peter Walsh]

Leo,
There have been many recent technical and product changes regarding this subject and SSD's.
Here is a very interesting article to read on the status of things that sets it all out nicely: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... nomyId=149
Since Windows 7 is the first OS to provide effective management of SSD's (solid state hard drives) it may all be heading where you want to go.
I jumped on the 50% off sale on windows 7 Pro, and when it arrives in the fall, I may add an SSD since they are now up to 160Gig in size and run my Operating system and eCabs there. We'll see how it all goes. Fun, fun, fun. Now, the question is.......how well will eCabs run on windows 7?
regards,

[Neville Bastian]

Hi Peter,
I am looking at a SSD purchase which are quite cheap now. Did you get around to trying this with Ecabinets?
Regards

Neville

[Peter Walsh]

Neville,
I haven't yet bought an SSD. I got sidetracked and spent the money elsewhere. I will have to wait.
regards,

[Neville Bastian]

No worries Peter.
I believe the new version of windows does support the SSD and they are about $180 for a 64 gig. The 128 Gig is also available for about $100 more I think in my neck of the woods.
I believe Ecabinets version 6 will work with Windows 7 so it could be what Ecabinets users need.
If Dean is reading this maybe he knows if the purchase is worth while?

All the best

Neville

[Dean Fehribach]

I've been following SSD development for a little while now and have not decided to move any of our equipment (servers or desktops) to SSD's just yet. This is a fairly new technology, while not far removed from the typical USB flash drive, they are quite different beasts. SSD's must keep track of the reads and the writes to every cell to help balance use evenly throughout the drive. Performance of SSD's also varies significantly among vendors and models. What's got me most worried is if an SSD fails, can I extract any data from it like I can with disk drive recovery companies?

Personally, I'm keeping a watch for now. Probably for about another year.

[Neville Bastian]

Thanks Dean for your point of view. The failure may be a issue of the SSD so maybe a background hourly backup program may be the requirement so only a few hours of data is lost.
Maybe when you do start testing the SSD's Dean you could share your results the same way you have with the video cards.
I guess Microsoft has invited you to the big party this Thursday?

He he
Regards
Neville