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How to Set up and Use a RAM Drive in Windows

Sayak Boral
Updated Jun 25, 2022

A RAM drive or a RAM disk is a hard drive made up of your computer’s RAM. It can’t
save data permanently, but it’s incredibly fast. If you want to try it out, you can
create a RAM drive with free software and without a single computer upgrade. This
article will walk through how you can set up and use a RAM drive on Windows 10
and Windows 11.

CONTENT

Using ImDisk Toolkit

Using Your RAM Drive

Precautions and Recommendations

Frequently Asked Questions

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Using ImDisk Toolkit

ImDisk Toolkit is an application for managing virtual drives. It also includes a utility
that allows the creation of RAM drives.

1. Download ImDisk from Sourceforge.net.

2. Install the application. Be sure to include all the components during the
installation.
Windows 11

Creating a RAM disk with Windows 11 is way faster than with Windows 10, as you
get an “installation finished” message as soon as you initiate the ImDisk setup.
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Windows 10
If you’re on Windows 10 continue with the following steps to finish the RAM disk
installation and then restart the system once.

3. Double-click on the desktop icon labeled “RamDisk Configuration.”

4. Adjust the disk size in the box at the top of the window. We recommend at least
4GB of storage to get a feel for how the disk works.
5. Click “OK” at the bottom of the window. This will create your RAM drive, which is
just a virtual disk that’s assigned to your computer’s RAM. The process happens
transparently, so there’s nothing you need to do.
6. If you get a warning about shutdown settings, click on the “Shutdown settings”
button.

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7. Then unlock the settings pane with your administrator password.
8. Finally, uncheck the checkbox next to “Turn on fast startup (recommended)”
and click “Save changes” at the bottom of the window. Your RAM drive is now
ready for use.

Fast Startup speeds up the process of turning on your computer by saving a

system state between completely off and hibernation to your hard drive. This
happens when the computer writes the contents of your RAM to a stable hard
drive. As you may guess, this could mess with your RAM drive’s ability to preserve
and track its data. With Fast Startup off, boots may take slightly longer, but it’s
doubtful that you’ll notice much.

Disabling fast startup will satisfy the warning window, but let’s consider why. This
will also allow ImDisk to save your RAM drive’s data to an image file when you shut
down your computer. If you don’t, the contents of your RAM drive will be erased
completely every time, with no saved image storage. It would also disable the RAM
drive’s ability to load the previous content. Basically, the drive would act much
more like RAM and much less like a disk. Depending on your use case, that may be
disappointing or unusable.

Using Your RAM Drive

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You can access and use it just like any normal hard drive. It shows up in Windows
File Explorer just like any other drive.
However, a RAM drive is exponentially faster than traditional types of storage. And
we mean exponentially. You can verify it yourself using Anvil’s Storage Utilities, a
raw speed comparison tool. In the following test, my Windows device C drive
registered an overall score of 77.63 Mbps with average read and write speeds of
40.44 and 37.20 Mbps respectively.
In comparison, the values for ImDisk RAM drive were off the charts with an overall
score of 29675.8 Mbps, along with average read and write scores of 21615 and
8080 Mbps respectively.
In most cases, it isn’t feasible to buy more RAM simply to have a bigger RAM disk.
However, with between 8GB and 32GB of RAM, you can do some useful things.
These include:

Video and photo editing: these processes can be resource-intensive, and more
traditional means of storage can create a bottleneck slowing them down.

Gaming: if you have a lot of RAM, you can run some games from your RAM disk.
Imagine how smoothly your games would run if you did this.

Statistical modeling: this requires access to data at high speeds. A RAM disk
can provide the necessary read/write speeds.

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Precautions and Recommendations

You will need to ensure that data stored on your RAM disk is backed up to an
image, of course. Luckily, ImDisk pretty much takes care of this. In addition, if you
aren’t using a laptop with a strong battery, you should hook up your PC or laptop to
a UPS. This way, if there’s a surge or power outage, you’ll be able to shut down
your computer safely without losing data.
The speed of RAM is undeniable. Another option for taking advantage of this is
looking into purchasing a RAM-based solid-state drive. This type of drive uses
RAM modules instead of traditional SSD modules. They contain batteries to
prevent data loss. However, they are quite expensive, so this is probably only
feasible if you absolutely need RAM-level speeds for your work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a RAM drive so fast?

RAM drive is fast by definition because it repurposes the computer’s random

access memory (RAM) to serve as temporary file storage. In other words, it
functions as the software abstraction of a hard drive.

RAM drive is also fast because of its unique file characteristics. Unlike an
SSD/HDD, it does not use excessive reads and writes from their data bus, and
instead, uses a temporary folder to quickly move all the files in or out. It is,
therefore, not burdened by several small file units, which leads to faster
response time. This gives a RAM drive massive performance gains in terms of
throughput values.

How big can a RAM disk be?

The RAM disk size depends on the amount of RAM your computer has at the
moment. Under no condition it can exceed that limit. For safety purposes, it is
prudent not to assign more than 50% of your PC’s RAM to serve as a RAM disk.
For example, if you have 16GB of RAM on your computer, you can allocate up
to 8 GB for the RAM drive.
What can be the biggest disadvantages of RAM drives?
As fast as RAM drives are, you can’t switch off the drive, and you can’t save
information to them permanently. If you require more storage in a RAM drive
(>16 GB), it isn’t nearly as cost effective as SSDs. The exponentially faster file
storage comes at the expense of all your data getting wiped out the moment
you disconnect the RAM drive. Your data is also vulnerable to power failures, a
risk that can be reduced with a long-lasting laptop battery and/or UPS.

When should you use a RAM drive?

A RAM drive is most useful for applications where fast data writing and
reading is important. It is best suited for highly technical computing tasks
where high throughput is mission critical. For example, if you want your
computer to perform 3D video rendering, a RAM drive will help you write data
much faster than SSD due to faster encoding.

Can you use RAM drive as a boot drive?

Yes, you can use your laptop or PC RAM drive to boot up your operating
system, but we don’t recommend it. The process will be very slow because of
the volatile nature of this memory option. As your data is lost entirely each
time you disconnect RAM drive, it will take a long time to back up your
operating system. Also you need to keep your laptop or PC powered on to
avoid RAM drive disconnection while booting.
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Sayak Boral
Sayak Boral is a technology writer with over eleven years of experience working in different
industries including semiconductors, IoT, enterprise IT, telecommunications OSS/BSS, and
network security. He has been writing for MakeTechEasier on a wide range of technical topics
including Windows, Android, Internet, Hardware Guides, Browsers, Software Tools, and
Product Reviews.

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