Intercepting system-wide restarts and shut down

Started by Ramboy

Ramboy

Intercepting system-wide restarts and shut down   12 November 2014, 08:55

Hi,
If an application (for example Windows update) restarts the system, does RAM disk kick in and write it's content to the image file before the restart is carried out?

Thanks.
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Intercepting systemwide restarts and shut down   12 November 2014, 10:05

It should. The Windows shutdown sequence is pretty much the same whether initiated by a user or an application.
Ramboy

Re: Intercepting systemwide restarts and shut down   13 November 2014, 08:18

Thanks.
Ramboy

Re: Intercepting systemwide restarts and shut down   15 November 2014, 01:17

Now that I am here, let me say that I don't use the image file functionality of Ramdisk, because it is slow. I use Robocopy through a batch file which is faster. I think the reason it is faster is because it does not copy files which already exist in destination. Does Ramdisk copy it's content regardless of whether the files already exist or not?
Another reason for Robocopy's speed is it's ability to multi thread the job. With my dual core CPU, I discovered that setting the thread number to 32 is fastest. Does Ramdisk use multi threading?

Thanks
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Intercepting system-wide restarts and shut down   15 November 2014, 21:50

It doesn't use multi-threading as normally reading from and writing to an image file is better done in one thread (especially for a magnetic plates HDD where it would have to seek back and forth between two chunks of a file).

Having said that, when the RAM writes data back to an associated image file, for example on shutdown, it only writes blocks that have changed since the image was read. I guess you can compare both Robocopy and an image file to see which option works best for you.
Ramboy

Re: Intercepting system-wide restarts and shut down   15 November 2014, 23:16

I beg to differ on multi-threading for HDD intensive operations. Function calls from slow HDD's leave the CPU idling and waiting most of the time, whereas with multi-threading the CPU can be better utilized. I did compare Robocopy to image file and Robocopy won hands down. Try the following line and you'll see.
( F:\ is Ramdisk. replace %~dp0RamDisk with a folder you would like to copy to)

robocopy F:\ %~dp0RamDisk /mir /copyall /MT:32 /R:1 /w:0 /zb /ndl > test.txt

I'd be glad to see your results.

Reply to this topic

Sometimes you can find a solution faster if you try the forum search, have a look at the knowledge base, or check the software user manual to see if your question has already been answered.

Our forum rules are simple:

  • Be polite.
  • Do not spam.
  • Write in English. If possible, check your spelling and grammar.

Author:

Email:

Subject

A brief and informative title for your message, approximately 4–8 words:

     

Spam prevention: please enter the following code in the input field below.

 ********   ********  **        **     **  **     ** 
 **     **     **     **        ***   ***  **     ** 
 **     **     **     **        **** ****  **     ** 
 ********      **     **        ** *** **  ********* 
 **     **     **     **        **     **  **     ** 
 **     **     **     **        **     **  **     ** 
 ********      **     ********  **     **  **     ** 

Message: