Someone, sometime posted here that they were considering getting a large-size Memory Stick to put in their TR to run some things off of in order to save battery life.  I’m curious if anyone has actually tried this.  The fact that you could shut off the drives and basically just run off a chip seems to me like it’d be extra power-thrifty, but I’ve no idea how much so.

Also, someone mentioned the idea of using the extra RAM (assuming you have extra RAM, which, IMO, if you have the full 1GB, you probably have plenty extra) for a ramdrive.  Anyone tried this, and did you get any significant battery performance increase?

Only curious…

- Lotus

I posted a while back about this, though the post you saw may have been a different one.

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=266

Pardon me, but how does one create a ram drive?  I’m interested in the battery saving numbers you mentioned without having to spend $300 on the extended battery. 8)

You will need special software to create a RAM disk. There are several different ones available. Microsoft has a basic one used for developers that creates 32MB (max) ramdisks which isn’t terribly useful.

ARSoft has a free product that is decent but very basic.It allows you to create up to a 100MB RAM disk (which might be enough for caching internet files). Theoretically, it can create 2GB RAM disks but in actuality it cannot due to the way the TR’s memory is structured (UMA design).

Cenatek.com and Superspeed.com both sell different types of RAM Disk software and both can supposedly create larger than 100MB RAM disks. I’ve tested both and they can create larger disks but in my experience, both have been a little buggy. Also, the prices for these softwares range from $69-99. They do offer some extra features like saving the contents of the RAM disk to disk but both caused blue screen crashes to my system occasionally.

Cenatek has a trial download version and Superspeed has a money back guarantee if you want to try them out. I strongly suggest making a backup or restore point of your system before installing either these programs.

Thanks for the response, gr00vy0ne.  Boy, you really are a wealth of knowledge!   I’m glad you bought a TR or I might have never had the benefit of this forum.  I hope I can somehow give as much as I have recieved.

Here’s an example of using the a RAMDISK especially if you have lots of unused RAM.

I’m currently using ARSoft’s RAMDisk product (which is free) which can only create up to a 100MB RAMDisk due to the TR’s unique memory structure. However, 100MB is more than enough for an Internet cache.

Once you create a RAMDISK (Z: in my case) you then point your Internet cache to the RAMDISK. I suggest emptying your cache before you do this to make the process go faster. Once you’ve moved the cache over you will need to logout/login again. You should notice that when you browse the web the pages should load faster. The reason why is that most web pages are made up of a lot of little files (i.e. HTML, css, text, gif, jpg, etc.). Typically, each one has to be written to your cache directory on your hard disk which slows everything down. It also puts a lot of wear/tear on your hard disk. So, with the RAMDISK, the files are copied straight to memory (which is nanoseconds vs. milliseconds) and displays immediately. If you reload a page or visit a page multiple times, the RAMDISK helps load the pages much faster…especially if it’s heavily laden with graphics.

Ok, here’s the catch. Internet Explorer uses the cache when you’re downloading files. So, if any given file is larger than the RAMDISK (so >100MB in my case) then it will fail to download as it will run out of space. You could increase the size of the RAMDISK but then you’d have to use the non-free RAMDISK programs. One way around it is to use a download manager program with your browser. I use GetRight (not free) which handles the downloads extremely well and can independently use extra system memory to cache downloads so that your hard disk doesn’t get trashed. Of course, there’s plenty of other download managers you can use as well.

So, it’s a good use of extra memory and definitely makes your system feel more faster.  :D

gr00vy- Does using the RAM disk for the internet cache mean that it’s cleared out everytime the computer is restarted? If so, how do are cookies and the like handled? I ask because I have a bunch of passwords saved but forgotten and don’t want to erase anything.

Yes, if you restart your system then all of the data is flushed. I think this is actually a good thing because it gets rid of unwanted clutter. For whatever odd reason, Windows seems to know that you’re using a RAMDISK and it still keeps the cookies and history data on the C: drive and just puts the cache files on the RAMDISK.

If you hibernate it will keep all of the data.

The other non-free programs can actually save the data to disk before shutting down and load it back up when you restart your computer.

I’m writing a Sony book and need to get in touch with you,
grOOvyOne. (I know you from VAIO Village). Apologies for
the off-topic post. Thanks.
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[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Here’s an example of using the a RAMDISK especially if you have lots of unused RAM.

I’m currently using ARSoft’s RAMDisk product (which is free) which can only create up to a 100MB RAMDisk due to the TR’s unique memory structure. However, 100MB is more than enough for an Internet cache.

How is TR memory’s structure diffrent? ARsoft’s RAMDisk doesn’t seem to stop me from allocating more than 100MB for a RAMDisk (I am using version 1.20).

But since you said I shouldn’t I did’t do that… But why is that? That would be nice to have a larger RAMDisk. Have you moved your windows TEMP drives to you RAM disk too? Is 100Mb enough for all that?

Thanx

The TR’s UMA memory design and ARSoft’s RAMDisk shouldn’t allow more than 100MB due to the software design. If you are able then i have no explanation.

No, I haven’t moved my TEMP directories because they typically fill up faster than my Internet caches and if you run out of TEMP space, weird things happens.

What is the TEMP dir used for?

Once again you were right Gr00vy0ne. Tried to go over 100MB and whan I rebooted RAMDisk wouldn’t load.

Is that a software bug or a hardware limitation? I mean, would it work with another software?

It’s actually a limitation on how Windows XP handles memory. You’ll need a non-free ramdisk software to get around it. Both Cenatek and Superspeed sell software that gets around the limitation but you’ll have to spend money on them.

How large should a ramdisk be in order to handle both Internet Temp and win TEMP?

Well, it depends. Here’s a scenario where having a small temp file doesn’t work. You download a software demo that’s 120MB. You decide you want to install it. To run it, and extract the files, most installation programs will use the TEMP directory to extract the files first before running it. If you only have 100MB allocated then it will FAIL to install.

Even Office applications use TEMP directories to store files. So, let’s say you’re working on a long document and you accidentally forget to save a file and Word crashes. Word normally uses TEMP space to keep backup temp files of your documents. You might be able to retrieve your document if it was saved (which is likely if there was TEMP space available).

I don’t normally use TEMPs on RAM disks. It also depends on how much RAM the system has. I won’t do it unless I have 2GB of RAM or more since I typically use a lot of RAM in my applications. With 2GB of RAM, I might set aside 500-1000MB for a RAM disk if I were to put the TEMP directories on it.