OS X RAM Disk

[mc68k]

I know what you're thinking…"RAM Disk? Doesn't OS X's underlying Unix structure alleviate that archaic practice?"

Well maybe…but the only entry into the X RAM Disk field, ramBunctious, has this to say:

From what we've seen, and from what we've heard from beta testers, ramBunctious RAM disks offer substantial performance gains over hard drive access. But it would be myopic of us to recommend using RAM disks only for performance reasons. There are several other reasons that people use ramBunctious, on OS X as well as earlier OS versions.

RAM disks require less power. For laptop users in particular, using RAM disks in your workflow patterns can dramatically increase battery life.

For users of both laptop and desktop systems who set up hard drive spin-down times, judicious use of a RAM disk will allow the hard drive to spin down sooner and spin up less frequently. This means less hard drive abuse and less noise. This use of RAM disks to avoid small, frequent, annoying hard drive accesses is a big reason why SETI@home users like to use ramBunctious.

Hmmmm……interesting. I used to use RAM Disks in OS 9 to store browser cache in RAM instead of on disk with IE, but Mozilla in X can store cache in RAM and on disk. So I really don't use RAM disks with X.

But for you laptop users out there, the increased battery life sounds interesting. Any comments welcome on RAM Disks. I have lotsa RAM and I am always looking for ways to use it more effectively.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

interesting. i was just learning about using ram disks when i made the switch to os x so i haven't missed them per se, but i was wondering about them.

so rambunctious is available and sets up ram disks like in 9? has anyone tried it?