Right now, I'm running a 16GB 50/50 hybrid ramdisk with variable allocation. And I was wondering what would happen if my RAM disk was full above 8GB, and I was using more than 8GB on other things.
That is, what happens if the disk tries to expand more than it has room for?
What happens if the disk gets too full for RAM?
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esepc40991
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Re: What happens if the disk gets too full for RAM?
So you set up a 16GB virtual disk with 8GB RAM (Dynamic Allocation) and 8GB physical disk space, right? When the RAM part is full of data, the program will store new data to the phsical disk part (in a *.hbd file by default).
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esepc40991
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Re: What happens if the disk gets too full for RAM?
I'm aware of that.
Let me explain it this way:
Let's say I had an 8GB drive set up. Purely RAM.
Now let's say my other applications are using a total of 12GB or RAM.
What happens when the RAM drive tries to fill up? What if there isn't enough free RAM to store the complete 8GB of data on the RAM disk?
Let me explain it this way:
Let's say I had an 8GB drive set up. Purely RAM.
Now let's say my other applications are using a total of 12GB or RAM.
What happens when the RAM drive tries to fill up? What if there isn't enough free RAM to store the complete 8GB of data on the RAM disk?
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InquiringMind
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Re: What happens if the disk gets too full for RAM?
Esepc40991,
Primo Ramdisk will always reserve the memory specified for the Ramdisk size (8GB in your case - you should see this in Task Manager) so what would happen if your other applications needed more than the remaining memory is that Windows would start swapping memory to/from the pagefile, as it would in any other "out of RAM" situation.
Computer performance would drop greatly with significant pagefile usage. Having the pagefile itself on a Ramdisk would reduce this, but performance would still be less than if you had a smaller Ramdisk allowing enough memory for your other processes.
So it is better to make any Ramdisk small enough to ensure your system always has some memory free (Task Manager does report peak memory usage so can be helpful in deciding a value).
Primo Ramdisk will always reserve the memory specified for the Ramdisk size (8GB in your case - you should see this in Task Manager) so what would happen if your other applications needed more than the remaining memory is that Windows would start swapping memory to/from the pagefile, as it would in any other "out of RAM" situation.
Computer performance would drop greatly with significant pagefile usage. Having the pagefile itself on a Ramdisk would reduce this, but performance would still be less than if you had a smaller Ramdisk allowing enough memory for your other processes.
So it is better to make any Ramdisk small enough to ensure your system always has some memory free (Task Manager does report peak memory usage so can be helpful in deciding a value).
Re: What happens if the disk gets too full for RAM?
Hi esepc40991,
When you set up a ramdisk, basically you shall make sure that you have enough memory to build this ramdisk. With the feature of dynamic memory management, Primo Ramdisk program allows you to create a ramdisk with size larger than installed physical memory. But this doesn't mean that you can actually utilize that amount of memory specified in the ramdisk.
As InquiringMind said, when Windows has no enough memory for our program or other applications, Widows will start swapping memory to/from the pagefiles. But the performance will drop a lot. PS. In your scenario, you cannot put pagefile into the ramdisk otherwise a deadlock may happen, becuase the ramdisk is dynamically managed and it also cannot get enough memory.
When you set up a ramdisk, basically you shall make sure that you have enough memory to build this ramdisk. With the feature of dynamic memory management, Primo Ramdisk program allows you to create a ramdisk with size larger than installed physical memory. But this doesn't mean that you can actually utilize that amount of memory specified in the ramdisk.
As InquiringMind said, when Windows has no enough memory for our program or other applications, Widows will start swapping memory to/from the pagefiles. But the performance will drop a lot. PS. In your scenario, you cannot put pagefile into the ramdisk otherwise a deadlock may happen, becuase the ramdisk is dynamically managed and it also cannot get enough memory.