Eliminate HD seek noise when browsing internet using RAMdisk

[rocketJeff]

This might be old news for you SPCR veterans and not applicable to SSD users. But I just found out today how to use a virtual RAMdisk to eliminate hard drive seek noise while browsing the internet! Browsers typically stores data as you browse (cookies,temporary files,prefetch DNS addresses etc) and if you have a loud hard drive, it can get quite irritating.

A virtual RAMdisk is using a portion of your RAM and using it as if it's a regularly partitioned storage space. Then if you set your browser's cache folder to the ramdisk partition, then any data your browser fetches and stores during browsing is placed in this RAMdisk, which is silent!

Theoretically, putting cache on RAMdisk should make internet browsing a little faster/smoother, but I haven't noticed a big difference. The silence is what I was going for.

Drawbacks:
1) RAM is volatile, meaning if an unexpected power outage occurs, everything on the RAMdisk is gone with absolutely way of recovering it. So I would not put anything mission critical on it.
Fortunately, there is a way to store the RAMdisk image onto your non-volatile storage, so restarting the computer does not wipe the data.
2) the amount of ram you designate as the RAMdisk is not usable as RAM anymore. So only do this if you have memory to spare.

I followed this guide. Scroll down about 3/4 way down to see the section on RAMdisk. This guide uses Dataram RAMdisk software, which is free.

I followed that guide to install the RAMdisk and modified Chrome's cache file to the RAMdisk. I allocated 400mb of RAM to the RAMdisk and that seems to be enough. Chrome is currently only taking up about 100mb. However, I do have Chrome's phishing and malware protection turned off. That apparently takes up a lot of space over time.

I didn't bother with FF and IE since I don't use them often, and I don't want to tie up any more RAM than necessary. To modify Chrome's cache file location, right click on the Chrome shortcut (this method only works for Chrome shortcuts, don't right click on the actual Chrome.exe), select properties, then in the 'target' box, you should see something like this:
C:\Users\...\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

Then simply append this to it: -user-data-dir="R:\Chrome_Cache"
Notice that there are no spaces in the entire phrase. I named my folder Chrome_Cache, but you can call yours whatever you like.

so now it should look like
C:\Users\...\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe -user-data-dir="R:\Chrome_Cache"

The first time you run chrome using that shortcut, a new folder called 'default' should be made in that folder. Now all your cache data will be in there.

If you want to keep your current data, you can find it at
C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome . Just copy the entire default folder over to your RAMdisk then everything should be set.

Hope this helps someone. Good luck!

[anss123]

Neat trick. Ram drives sounds risky but perhaps I can use an old memory stick instead.

Then again, I've not noticed much HDD noise when browsing except when Vista decides to update the search index, defrag or whatever it's doing.

[rocketJeff]

Neat trick. Ram drives sounds risky but perhaps I can use an old memory stick instead.

Then again, I've not noticed much HDD noise when browsing except when Vista decides to update the search index, defrag or whatever it's doing.

Ah good thinking. I might try that so I don't tie up a portion of my RAM. It should be slower though. I wonder if there's a way to benchmark 'snappiness' of internet browsing.

[anss123]

Check out "firefox portable", it's made for memory sticks and they say you need a fast memory stick otherwise it's better to disable caching.

If you're not terrible afraid of losing data you can tell windows to "optimize for performance" on the memory stick and see how that goes.

[RogueTrader]

not applicable to SSD users.

It is very applicable for SSD users.

SSD can only handle a limited number of writecycles before they fail. So using a ramdrive for browser cache and temp files is a good way of prolonging the life of an SSD. And a ramdrive is also 20 times faster then an SSD.

Just make sure the ramdrive is large enough for your temp files. I started out with a 256mb ramdrive and I kept gettng "disk full" errors. I'm now using 768mb which seems ok.

[Vicotnik]

Neat trick. Ram drives sounds risky but perhaps I can use an old memory stick instead.

Why would it be risky? Ideally you wouldn't store any important data on the ramdisk, just temporary files, browser cache etc.

A memory stick would defy the purpose - it's much slower than even a mechanical HDD.

[nutball]

Neat trick. Ram drives sounds risky but perhaps I can use an old memory stick instead.

Why would it be risky? Ideally you wouldn't store any important data on the ramdisk, just temporary files, browser cache etc.

^^^ This. The browser cache is just a copy of stuff which, by definition, is available on the Internet and will be re-downloaded transparently if the local copy is lost.

I set up a 256MB ram disk on my PC for Firefox, I haven't looked back. I feel it makes a noticeable difference in speed (this may be a placebo, I don't care!), though not really noise as my main HD is fairly quiet anyway. 256MB is probably way overkill, half or quarter that would probably suffice.

[halcyon]

I'm using the same method with FF.

I have FF installed, along with profiles and cache on a 500MB RAM disk.

1. Uninstall FF
2. Install RAMdisk as a drive in your operating system
3. Install FF to RAMdisk
4. Start FF with profile manager switch (e.g. firefox -profilemanager )
5. Create profile on RAMdisk
6. Configure Cache to RAMdisk via about:config by editing
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory
(e.g. in windows value for drive R and dir Cache would be : R:\Cache )
7. Restart firefox

You can find similar instructions for Linux & OS X by googling:

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+r ... om+ramdisk

On my own system, my Ram disk is written to HD on shutdown and automatically read/mounted on startup.

Everything is 100% transparent to me, once installed.

Except the speed. Man, the speed.

Highly recommended. Even faster than my Intel X25-M 160GB. If you are coming off a conventional HD, you will notice the speed even more.

[andyb]

I am using an even better method than a Ramdisk for internet cache, RAM.

Quite simply FF does not use a drive at all on my PC, I have tweaked the settings so that nothing at all gets written to disk.

Apart from the obvious plus points, there are possibly a couple of drawbacks (for some people).

Good points: Security, privacy, no writing to HDD/SSD, fast with a fast internet connection, no need to have a RAM Disk for all of the above good points without losing a chunk of RAM.

Bad points (possibly): Websites that need to be logged into do not remember any usernames or passwords, any setting that have been changed, or websites that use cookies dont have access to the cookies as they are gone the moment the last FF Window is closed. Due to no internet cache this could be slower for people with low performance internet connections.

As I need to look up the settings that I have changed for future reference, I will post them here.


Andy

[yolkietoby]

I have created a Ramdisk and was able to put my Firefox profile and redirect it to save its cache file on the ramdisk. However when I browse, there are still instances that some temp files are not written on the Firefox folder (which is now on the ramdisk) but are written to : C\users\xxx\appdata\local\temp (my OS is win7 x64) For example, when I watch a youtube video, some temp files are created in the above folder, and according to resource monitor, it is system related instead of firefox related. While I could physically copy the temp folder onto the Ramdisk, since I don't know what's writing all these temp files, I have no idea how to redirect the traffic of such to the ramdisk. Any idea?

[Vicotnik]

Set the system variable TMP and TEMP to point to a folder on the ramdisk.

System Properties -> Environment Variables

[yolkietoby]

I did what you said, but then when I go back to youtube and start downloading videos, they are still save the the old temp folder?

[Nighthog]

Even though I don't use a SSD I have to thank you for showing me this.

I use Win Xp Sp3 and have 4Gb system ram but 32bit makes it so I can only use 3.25Gb so I had some 768Mb of ram newer ever used. Whit RamDrive I can put that ram to use now.

I did the temp and FF_cache tweaks for now. But I wonder if I can just put various small programs I use and install them on the ram drive instead rather than the regular hdd.

Though I wonder if the 768Mb is enough for temp in the long run? I could siphon some more ram to it as I hardly use most of it most of the time if it shows I need some more.

I wonder if I should put my Litestep on the new RamDrive now instead.