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OmniTrader Upgrade Forums OmniTrader General Discussion HowTo: RAM Disk/Drive		Last Activity 12/30/2024 1:50 PM 0 replies, 413 viewings

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aztrix

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Posts: 116

Joined: 6/16/2004
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia

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Subject : HowTo: RAM Disk/Drive
Posted : 9/7/2022 9:18 AM
Post #48717

Howzit Folks?

For anyone who feels the need for speed, I have recently setup a RAM Disk/Drive for my trading apps including OmniTrader & OmniData.

So while this info is fresh in my memory I thought I would post a quick HowTo with my experiences and hopefully a best practice guide for anyone else with spare RAM capacity and looking to improve speed, particularly for database disk I/O operations.

Why you might ask, well after you have a look at the following comparison your question might be answered I/O Wars RAM Disk vs HDD vs SSD

I did a search of the forums and found some references to RAM Disk/Drive but limited useful or actionable info.

So next I did a search on DuckDuckGo for RAM Disk/Drive and after half an hour of reading decided to check on my favourite Windows 10 forum and voila 🤓

This gave a basic instruction set but no detailed ins and outs but it was a start …

ImDisk Setup:

1. Download ImDisk Toolkit
2. Follow the instructions to install & configure ImDisk Toolkit at How to Create a RAM Disk with ImDisk in Windows 10
3. I used a 16GB RAM Drive from my laptop's 32GB of memory
4. My RAM Drive is set to R:

5. The backup RAM Image File/Folder is set to C:\RAMDisk (on SSD for speed)

6. My ImDisk setup

This last part wasn't obvious to me but a bit of experimentation and I finally figured out it 🙄

My initial findings were that the install was simple enough but from an operational perspective ImDisk doesn't cut the mustard! The primary reason for this is that it does a copy of files/directories on the RAM drive changing the create/modify dates to the time this occurred, which when the RAM drive is reloaded causes most of my software to fail … oh dear, more research

I have however found a handy workaround … meet FreeFileSync

FreeFileSync Setup & Configuration:

1. Download FreeFileSync
2. Follow the instructions and install FreeFileSync, simple enough
3. My configuration of FreeFileSync is as follows:
4. Left hand folder set to R:
5. Right hand folder set to C:\RAMDisk

6. Comparison set to "File time and size" the other settings are optional
7. In the Filter I added \Temp\FFS-* to the defaults (optional, see P.S. to understand why)
8. My Synchronisation settings are set to Mirror i.e. 1-way from R: ==>> to C:\RAMDisk because ImDisk loads the RAM Drive after a reboot
9. Test the synchronisation and fix any error if necessary
10. Save the configuration to FFS_RAMDisk or your preferred name in a safe memorable location
11. Open RealTimeSync and specify Folders to watch

12. Add configuration file from step 9 to the Command line
13. Click Start to automate file synchronisation
14. This will need to be started manually after a reboot or added to Windows Startup. I do it manually because I prefer not to risk it interfering with ImDisk

So far I have noticed a tangible difference in speed on my almost 7 year old laptop although I haven't benchmarked the performance

Speed aside there are additional benefits, less wear and tear on SSD due to a reduction in I/O intensive disk operations means a longer life, my laptop also runs a lot cooler now

Any questions or comments, give me a shout?

Cheers
Aztrix

P.S. I have also moved the windows user and system temp folders to the RAM Disk, jury is still out on that but Chrome is certainly snappier. I'll restore them to default location or D: drive if I run out of space on the RAM Disk

[Edited by aztrix on 9/7/2022 9:33 AM]

Attached file : RAM Drive.png (50KB - 240 downloads)

Attached file : RAM Image Folder.png (51KB - 244 downloads)

Attached file : ImDisk.PNG (12KB - 241 downloads)

Attached file : FFS Setup.png (74KB - 202 downloads)

Attached file : RTS Setup.png (18KB - 240 downloads)

Attached file : FFS_RAMDisk.ffs_batch (1KB - 112 downloads)

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