RAM disk backed up to SSD endurance and reliability

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by avamk, Dec 17, 2014.

  1. avamk

    avamk Newbie

    Hello,

    1. I read Tech ARP's RAM Disk Guide Rev. 3.0 and learned about how having a RAM disk can improve performance, and reduce writes to my SSD to improve its lifetime. So I followed the intructions and set up a 2048 MB volatile RAM disk on my Windows 7 system and moved the Windows temp folders and all browser caches into it.

    2. Since I have a whopping 32 GB of RAM, I made a second 12 GB RAM disk that is backed up to my SSD for persistence. This is based on me reading that using software installed on the RAM disk can greatly improve performance. So I have two RAM disks, one volatile, one persistent.

    What I am wondering is: Since my 12 GB RAM disk is backed up to my SSD every day when I shutdown the computer, that's an extra 12 GB of writing on my SSD every day! Will this take a big toll on its endurance and reliability? A performance improvement with a RAM disk is great, but I don't want to sacrifice too much of my SSD's lifespan for it.

    Here are my computer's specs:

    AMD A10-7850K APU
    32 GB 2400 mHz DDR3 RAM
    Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD
    The two RAM disks were made with SoftPerfect RAM Disk

    Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

    P.S. I saw a YouTube video of creating a RAM disk volume that's RAID striped with an SSD for allegedly great performance, how does this compare to my current set up performance and SSD endurance-wise?
     
  2. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    avamk,

    Why do you want to back up the RAM disk to the SSD for persistence? SSDs are already very fast, especially where random accesses are concerned. Granted, they are not as fast as RAM but they are very much faster than HDDs. So you are unlikely to see much difference in performance for most workloads.

    When you use an image file on the SSD together with the RAM disk, every write to the RAM disk is replicated to the SSD. That said, only the creation of the image file will write 12GB of bits to the SSD. After that, only the changes to the RAM disk are replicated to the image file on the SSD.

    If I'm not mistaken, the Crucial MX100 is rated for 65GB of writes per day for 3 years, or a lifespan limit of 71TB. If you want to stretch that to 5 years, then the writes need to be limited to about 39GB per day.

    How much your 12GB RAM disk eats into your lifespan not only depends on how much writes you make to that RAM disk in a day, but also depends on how much writes you make to the SSD itself.
     
  3. avamk

    avamk Newbie

    Yeah I've been trialling the RAM disk and I agree the performance increase is noticeable, but not that dramatic.

    12 out of about 39 GB/day sounds like a big chuck even if I don't write that much to the SSD, I guess I'll just stick to my small volatile RAM disk and leave the rest on the SSH.

    Thank you for your advice!!
     
  4. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    You're welcomed. :thumb: :mrgreen:
     

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