RAM Disk on Windows 11

Yes, a sample virtual disk code was in Windows Developer Kit for many years.

Moreover, there was a vdisk.sys driver in MS-DOS, and I've used it in DOS times. But unfortunately, there is no RAM disks general usefulness now, especially after M.2 SSDs appearing.

Your point about there being "no RAM disks general usefulness now, especially after M.2 SSDs appearing." is not quite accurate though.

With SSD's being so much faster the speed benefits may have been reduced greatly, But if a situation exists where a large number of files is created, edited and deleted then this process will cause a SSD's lifespan to be reduced immensely. SSDs will not last for as long as a good old HDD. So to be honest using a RAM drive for temp files would actually be more benificial to a moden systems durability that it ever was.

Im actually surprised that MS isnt promoting this as a use for it own windows temp files. I would also think that it would help with heat production as a SSD being written to a lot would generate more heat that a ram chip.

Yes, a sample virtual disk code was in Windows Developer Kit for many years.

Moreover, there was a vdisk.sys driver in MS-DOS, and I've used it in DOS times. But unfortunately, there is no RAM disks general usefulness now, especially after M.2 SSDs appearing.

Hi Igor, unfortunately I couldn't find anything official, but there are 2 tidbits I found interesting.

First, Microsoft has been playing around with ram disks for a long time. Here's an example driver for Windows 2000:

https://archive.org/details/ramdisk_202108
Second, they've been at it for at least till 2013 when Windows 8.1 came out. Again an example driver implementation:

https://github.com/microsoftarchive/msdn-code-gallery-microsoft/blob/master/Official%20Windows%20Driver%20Kit%20Sample/Windows%20Driver%20Kit%20(WDK)%208.1%20Samples/%5BC%2B%2B%5D-windows-driver-kit-81-cpp/WDK%208.1%20C%2B%2B%20Samples/RAMDisk%20Storage%20Driver%20Sample/C%2B%2B/src/ramdisk.c

But yeah, other than examples and some other 3rd party programs that might work up to Windows 10 I haven't found anything for Windows 11, which is kind of a bummer.

If Microsoft decided back then that people don't "need" ram disks when ram was sparse I hope they'll reconsider at some point. Especially now that even modern laptops come with at least 16 GB by default.

with friendly regards, Paul

> Also, very interesting Igor, I'm going to check if I find any sources on that

Please share the information if you'll find any public mention of this. I've got this information from some private source or during visiting Microsoft campus in Redmond. Sorry, I do not remember exactly.

And I may add, the effect of RAM drive could be effective with a lot of creating, reading, deleting files by some process, e.g. during a project compilation. In other cases available RAM decreasing has more negative effect than gain from a RAM drive. And this gain is much smaller mow due to hard drives replacing with very fast M.2 SSDs.

Alright, tank you RAJU.MSC.MATHEMATICS and Igor Leyko.

So there is no official way.

(Also, very interesting Igor, I'm going to check if I find any sources on that so I know why they didn't bother!)

Adjusting virtual memory size is not the issue, I have enough physical RAM, which is why I want to use it for temporary files that do not need to be persisted over a reboot.

Because of the locked down tool-chain in my application I only get actual files as an in-between step. I've tried piping them directly, but that unfortunately didn't work so my best bet would've been a RAM disk.

In the meantime I've tried Arsenal-Image-Mounter which can also create RAM disks, but it too has issues.

You can't auto-mount it on boot (afaik) and sometimes Windows complains about driver issues and request I restart the computer.

I've also found another software from AMD: Radeon RAMDisk, but I'm not even bothering with it since it also lists Window 10 as the newest possible OS (Thanks Raju for pointing out virtual disk driver isn't supported anymore)