Getting more ram from your hard drive! (using your HDD as RAM!)

[IFX]

So, i posted this as a comment on someones post, but I felt as though it was worthy of its own page, so here goes. (note, I wasn't sure where to post it, and if administration thinks it should go elsewhere feel free to move it)

THIS TUTORIAL IS FOR WINDOWS 7! IT MIGHT WORK FOR WINDOWS 8 BUT I DON'T KNOW!

click start, right click computer, click properties.

click advanced system settings over on the left hand side.

click the advanced tab, click the settings button on the performance box.

click advanced tab again.

click change under virtual memory.

check the custom box, and type in how many gigs you want (however you must convert it from gigs to megs, so multiply how ever many gigs you want by 1024) (if you want 4 gigs, it would be 4096 megs)

(make sure initial and max are the same, so you all ways have that much ram)

click okay, and restart.

BOOM! YOU NOW HAVE X AMOUNT OF EXTRA RAM!

note, after your first restart you will never have to restart again when changing the amount.

[Mohenjo Daro]

Pretty sure this works for XP also, or there's a slightly different way to do it, but I don't suggest this unless you really need the ram, it's better to get more ram.

It's good for a quick addition for a bit more ram :)

[Colonello]

I'd imagine they may cause some unwanted side effects so I'd suggest for anyone in need of RAM to either use an unneeded flash drive or to just buy some. I'd highly suggest to anyone who is looking for more RAM to not use this method and use one of the many others. This way if an issue ever occurs on your "makeshift" RAM it wont affect the Hard Drive you use to store all your files. If anyone does wish to make part of their HDD in to RAM it is highly suggested to install a program that helps you such as RAM Disk.

[jcsnider]

This defeats the whole purpose of RAM, if the hard drive could efficiently act as ram we would use hard drives and all have terabytes of ram. The hard drive is slow, even if you have a top of the line solid state disk it would still be 10 to 20 times slower than normal ram.

This means that if you crossed your actual ram limit you would bring your computer to a halt waiting on your hard disk to cycle where as accessing normal RAM takes nanoseconds.

TLDR: This is cool technology, helped when RAM was really expensive but in this day in age, just get yourself an extra 2GB stick if you really need it.

[UnGod]

If your ram is running too slow take it out and blow on it

[IFX]

I dont even have the money for a 2g stick, I use a 64 gig flash drive for ram. I know, its an unnecessary amount, but its not like i'm using the flash drive for anything else anyway.

[abhi2011]

Like JC said, your HDD/Flashdrive won't be able to swap data fast enough that'll be of any use. Just get an extra ram. 

Oh btw my understanding of what this does is the OS will swap out the unwanted memory into secondary storage and only load them back into primary when needed. Like say you switch User Accounts from Account #1 to #2\. The memory used by apps in #1 (I think) will be written to disk and freed and Account #2 can now use the memory. 

Again, this'll be really slow and your CPU will have to wait longer for data to be taken from secondary memory. 

Read more about it [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging).

[IFX]

Idk. all I know is it made binding of isaac rebirth run about 20 times faster on my craptop.

[UnGod]

You found something that you thought would be useful to other people and you took the time to share it which is comendable. +1

[Marsh]

Your computer should do this already when you run out of ram (to a certain extent), As others have mentioned it will be much slower then actual ram usage. Reading from the hard disk is pretty much the slowest operation you can do on a computer. 

But hey! If it works for you then awesome! I guess slow ram is better then no ram?

[IFX]

From experimentation you want to use no more then 4 gigs, when i bumped it up to 6 everything was all choppy and weird, so i had a friend do it and he said the same. So, here at 4 i sit.

[deathtaker26]

I hope you know this isn't necessarily "RAM", It's Virtual Allocated Memory, similar to "Swap Space" in linux… no actually, it IS Swap Space... Basically when you run out of Physical Memory, your computer uses part of your hard drive as RAM. Seems to be what you want it to be? Well it's not. What's the difference between Virtual Allocated Memory and Physical Random Accessed Memory?

Well first of all, if you're using a Mechanical disk drive, or in some cases, even a hybrid drive, it's not going to be NEARLY as fast or as efficient as RAM. RAM is Solid State. It holds temporary data (such as variables) until the thread, or application that the data is running on is closed. I tell you this now because, if you're not using too many applications, you're not using much RAM. You should understand how little amounts of bytes these varaibles are using. Your RAM isn't storing a huge ass amount of data like gigabytes of files... it's just temporary data being stored. So a better solution? Don't run so much useless shit at once.

Why is Virtual Allocated Memory slower on Mechanical disk drives then RAM itself?

It's simple. RAM is Randomly Access and Solid State, while Mechanical disk drives, not so much...

In order to access another part of your data, a mechanical drive has to make rotation of a disk, whether it's part of a rotation, or a full rotation, isn't really important. The fact is, in order to scan data, you have to wait for a mechanical (the motor in your disk) to reach it's point of reading. While these motors are extremely fast, when you're storing variable in Virtual Memory, it tends to take up more time therefor, reducing the speed your applications will run...

Virtual Memory is more or less for systems with extremely low ammounts of Physical memory.... We're taking like 512MB to 1GB at the max...

Long story short, Virtual memory is relatively useless and slow if you don't have an SSD (Solid State Drive)... And if you have an SSD, you probably have a more up to date system already packed with plenty of RAM....

[deathtaker26]

Sorry for the double post, thought this would be better told in a separate post.

If you're trying to increase the speed of your windows machine, here is a quick lesson that will greatly help you out…

First of all, you need to understand that by default in installations, Windows likes to lock the "Number of Processors" your computer is running to 1 by default.

Second, Windows "Boot GUI" (The pretty animations and shit when windows starts up) actually takes more time in some cases for your computer to load

Third, Pay attention to how many objects and services are running at startup when you boot on your machine.... You might close them out after your PC loads, but that doesn't stop background services and such from starting with them when your computer boots.

* Go to your start menu, and in the "Run/Seach" bar, type in "msconfig" and hit enter.
* You will get a System Configuration window that will pop up.
* Go to the Boot tab at the top.
* Select "Advanced Options"
* Make sure that the "Number of Processors" field is checked.
* Set the drop down number underneath "Number of Processors" is set to the largest number available on that list, this is relative to the number of cores your processor has.
* Click OK
* Check the box that says "No GUI boot"
* Check the box that says "Make all boot settings permanent"
* Hit apply.

After applying all these settings, next take a look in the "Startup" tab, all the items here are objects that run when your computer starts up… if you're on Windows 8, go to the Task Manager (ctrl+alt+del) to view this list.

Disable all necessary startup applications on this list...

Hit Apply when you've finished disabling

Finally, take a look at the "Services tab" you may do the same for this tab in disabling as startup services... however, I do not recommend touching these services unless you're absolutely sure what they do. I also recommend writing down ALL the services you disable. Some services being disabled may prevent system startup, network connectivity, or access to files or security.

Have fun.

[IFX]

I do understand this. Quite well actually. What I don't get is why, when before I was using this system, my minecraft was running at about 30 frames. Now that ive bumped up my ram ive literally doubled my frames on it. And Binding Of Isaac: rebirth used to be rather slow. UNGODLY slow. and now it runs at full speed.

If you can explain why after allocating four more gigs of ram from my flash drive is bad, after seeing my stats go up that much, then i'll stop doing it.

as for your tutorial, I would like to thank you for that. I have gone as far as to disabling all unnecessary Items from my performance settings, and I usually cut my computer down to about 6 processes on startup (and i would have less, but thats all it will allow me).

[deathtaker26]

> I do understand this. Quite well actually. What I don't get is why, when before I was using this system, my minecraft was running at about 30 frames. Now that ive bumped up my ram ive literally doubled my frames on it. And Binding Of Isaac: rebirth used to be rather slow. UNGODLY slow. and now it runs at full speed.
>
> If you can explain why after allocating four more gigs of ram from my flash drive is bad, after seeing my stats go up that much, then i'll stop doing it.
>
> as for your tutorial, I would like to thank you for that. I have gone as far as to disabling all unnecessary Items from my performance settings, and I usually cut my computer down to about 6 processes on startup (and i would have less, but thats all it will allow me).

No one's trying to make you not do it… But I think it's more of a mind over matter more than a statistical thing. First of all, Allocating more virtual memory won't matter with minecraft, Minecraft is a java application which gets it's allocated RAM on runtime. it has a set ammount of ram of about 2GB unless you specify differently. Therefore, your minecraft STILL has the same amount of RAM. That's how java works, and is one of the reasons I am not too fond of it... but that's a different matter.. research shows that Binding of Isaac also uses java.... but I thought it used C++, so I'm not 100% sure on that.

So from evidence showing, it's really Mind over matter, you might just think it's running better when it's about the same performance.

[IFX]

> No one's trying to make you not do it… But I think it's more of a mind over matter more than a statistical thing. First of all, Allocating more virtual memory won't matter with minecraft, Minecraft is a java application which gets it's allocated RAM on runtime. it has a set ammount of ram of about 2GB unless you specify differently. Therefore, your minecraft STILL has the same amount of RAM. That's how java works, and is one of the reasons I am not too fond of it... but that's a different matter.. research shows that Binding of Isaac also uses java.... but I thought it used C++, so I'm not 100% sure on that.
>
> So from evidence showing, it's really Mind over matter, you might just think it's running better when it's about the same performance.

However, I have bumped up the amount of ram minecraft allocates. I did just do what you said with the visual boot…. processes.... stuff.... Not scrolling up for technical terms, and it appears to have worked its magic. Not having the gui when it loads seems kinda naked but i'll get used to it.

Minecraft may be mind over matter however.

isaac i promise you on the other hand is not mind over matter. I get an insane amount of frame increase when i do it. No matter what science says about it. I have a nother friend whos laptop couldnt run isaac at any more then probably 4 frames per second. after doing this his runs it as fast as my friends desktop which can run it at full speed no problem.

I dont know what is causing it, but there is an increase. 

You have any other "speed up my pc" esque tricks? I could actually use whatever I can get.

[deathtaker26]

> However, I have bumped up the amount of ram minecraft allocates. I did just do what you said with the visual boot…. processes.... stuff.... Not scrolling up for technical terms, and it appears to have worked its magic. Not having the gui when it loads seems kinda naked but i'll get used to it.
>
> Minecraft may be mind over matter however.
>
> isaac i promise you on the other hand is not mind over matter. I get an insane amount of frame increase when i do it. No matter what science says about it. I have a nother friend whos laptop couldnt run isaac at any more then probably 4 frames per second. after doing this his runs it as fast as my friends desktop which can run it at full speed no problem.
>
> I dont know what is causing it, but there is an increase. 
>
> You have any other "speed up my pc" esque tricks? I could actually use whatever I can get.

Generally, increasing the number of Cores windows runs on (The number of processors) usually increases speed more than anything else.

A few things you should get information is types of Processors.

APU, GPU and CPU

a CPU is a Computing Processing Unit, it's used for Computing, GPU is for graphics and rendering, APU is basically a combination of both but by all means is in NO WAY BETTER. I would rather have a CPU than an APU.

an APU allocates part of your Computing power to your Graphic rendering power. Most APU's are the AMD A-Series Processors.

If you have an APU and want to increase your power for games. Run less background applications and processes while you game… if you want it for faster applications. Don't run so many visual objects, eitherway DEFINATELY turn your computer's theme on classic mode for an APU.

even if you have an APU you may still install a GPU on your computer... however that's rather difficult on laptops. I believe they have some USB GPU's out there that aren't really great, but they do boost graphical performance a bit.

If you REALLY wanna boost your pc, find out if your laptop has SATA or PATA connections for its hard drive. If SATA, I recommend buying a SSD, Solid State Drive. It can replace your current hard drive and is GOD SO FREAKING FAST. Solid State Drives aren't based on moving parts, they're based on circuit boards. As stated before mechanical drives take time because you have to wait for pieces to move into place. By default, most lower end and systems older than a year will have Mechanical drives...

SSD's however have less space you can buy one for about 50cents USD a Gigabyte... it's not all that great.... 240GB for $120, but like I said this is for performance, not really space. if you want a middle line between space and performance get a hybrid. which is kinda a cross over between an SSD and a Mechanical drive. It has more space, but is slower then and SSD. It has less space, but is faster than a mechanical drive.

RAM really doesn't "Speed up" that much, it's really for how many programs you can run at once.

[deathtaker26]

Another suggestion, which you will have to do if you get a new hard drive either way, is whipe your OS. Make sure you back up all your data. Reinstall windows completely, this will erase your hard drive, and get a fresh start. Windows tends to "decay" in a sense as it's being used. meaning, the more you use it, the slower it gets. This effect also takes place the longer you run your computer, so turn it off at nights.

[IFX]

> Crest stuff here.

as it stands I find that my laptop is at a point in its life where if a better option comes up I am going to take it. It runs just fine for a lot of the things i want it to do, but "just fine" isnt good enough now days. As better games come out, and my skills producing music increases, my little laptop just isnt able to do what i need it to do. And as it stands, I feel as though spending that much money on a laptop that usually overheats in about 30 min flat without a coolant fan sitting ON ITS FRIGGIN HEAT SYNC (totally uncomfortable btw) just doesnt seem like the proper way to go about things. I think a better thing to do would be to invest in just getting a better laptop. something that I am sure will be able to last me.

maybe i can convince the arts institute to loan me a better laptop for my music production.

[IFX]

> Another suggestion, which you will have to do if you get a new hard drive either way, is whipe your OS. Make sure you back up all your data. Reinstall windows completely, this will erase your hard drive, and get a fresh start. Windows tends to "decay" in a sense as it's being used. meaning, the more you use it, the slower it gets. This effect also takes place the longer you run your computer, so turn it off at nights.

I actually have preactivated windows 7 on a flashdrive. Just plug it in and PRESTO, NEW LAPTOP! However, even at its ~~newest~~ Freshest state, my computer just isnt living up to what i would like it to do.

[deathtaker26]

Well, the SSD you can buy now, if you ever get something new you can stick it in a different machine later. It took me about 2 years to build my computer to my satitisfied standards, I poured about $600 to $800 in it myself, the rest I got for christmas and birthdays. I asked my parents for christmas 2 years ago to get me nothing but a hardware set. I wrote down a model number and told them to take it to the guy that ran the computer store by my house. It was about $250, it came with a FM2-A75IA-E53 and an AMD A8 Series APU with 4GB of DDR3 RAM. I already had a hard disk in my old computer and by all means it started HORRIBLE. I had no graphics card so I was running games off the APU.

The next thing I got was a Graphics card (GPU) ATI R7 260X 2GB of GDDR5 RAM. This cost my about $250 at the time it came out. This GREATLY boosted my Gaming performance, but writing and reading data was still slow, and so was boot. I bought Windows 8, because I was running windows 7 at the time…. another about $150 (I ended up buying it twice because the first one's warranty expired and a microsoft program (Hyper-V) ducked up my network). There was no "cracked" or "pre-activated" version at the time, don't hate.

Finally I bought my SSD, 240GB for $120\. Then i bought an ISKU ROCCAT ILLUMINATED KEYBOARD and Steelseries Rival Optical Gaming Mouse. Everything fits my satisfcation. I forget the price of mouse and keyboard, I think the mouse when it came out was $60 and the Keyboard was like $80, they were lower end gaming gear, but still decent gaming gear.

I also bought a high quality condenser microphone, but it recently broke... another $80 down the drain...

So, over all it cost me a lot, but it was over a timespan of about 2 years or so.

[deathtaker26]

Oh crap, I almost forgot I spent 60$ on a powersupply, they're cheap. But keep in mind, when you upgrade your computer's Graphics card or in some cases the processor (or buy a new mother board) you have to make sure your powersupply can handle the total power your computer is outputting. Power supplies are probably the cheapest part of building a PC.

I haven't even phased to upgrade my ram. I will probably give it another 4GB just to say I have 8GB of RAM. But I really don't care.

I also have like a $120 NetGear router my parents bought for my house when their dogs ate my old router…. so they had to buy me a new one, or else I would be the only one with internet... seeing that I'm the only one who can use the modem in my house >_>... I'm also the only one in my house with a desktop, my whole family uses laptops...

I have a laptop that I only use for class, it's very basic and I just got it this past christmas as a gift from my parents for spending 600$ out of my pocket for college...

If you want to get gear, get a job that's the only way i can put it. Never buy low end stuff, when it comes to PC's if it seems "too good to be true", it is... You get what you pay for.

[deathtaker26]

Just read your other message, As far as cooling goes, I still use my default Processor's fan, I still have my basic APU. and it runs Great. QuadCore, with a max of 4.0Ghz with just a tad bit basic overclocking… overclocking for me only boosts about .2Ghz so it's not really worth it. I was planning on upgrading to a bigger case with a Water Cooling system, but I had a really bad experience with water cooling before that cost me $200 for a new really crappy PC.

[Marsh]

> I hope you know this isn't necessarily "RAM", It's Virtual Allocated Memory, similar to "Swap Space" in linux… no actually, it IS Swap Space... Basically when you run out of Physical Memory, your computer uses part of your hard drive as RAM. Seems to be what you want it to be? Well it's not. What's the difference between Virtual Allocated Memory and Physical Random Accessed Memory?

Swap space that was the word I was looking for, I learned something today.

[xelander]

Seems like a way to give your hard drive an early death sentence.