Browser cache relocation is not consistent

Hi, I use Glary Utilities to maintain my system regularly and noticed that I had plenty of temp files after having made some net surfing. Which is normal but I checked if those files were really in the R:\Cache directory in the RAM disk, as I used the relocator tool to redirect them to the RAM Disk Cache rather than on my SSD C: system disk. And was really surprised to see that the temps files were in fact in both locations. I made several checks, and sometimes when I opened the normal Chrome cache on C:, I was redirected automatically to R:\Cache, but not always. I expected to be redirected to R each and every time, but why this is so inconstant? My goal in using RAM Disk is not only to gain speed but also to preserve my SSD (now 6 years old).

My RAM Disk is Image disk hard drive emulated, 4 GB out of total 8 GB RAM available.

Thanks for your help and best regards
jb

The Cache Relocator application simply creates a so-called symbolic link. A symbolic link is a file system object that points to another file system object. It is part of the core Windows functionality and it should always work, unless another application interferes, e.g. deletes it.

The creation of the symlink can also be done manually, as discussed on this web-site, or alternatively the --disk-cache-dir parameter can be used, which is also mentioned on that page.

By the way, there is usually no need to keep the caches between reboots. Unless you have another reason for using a persistent RAM disk, it may be better to use a volatile RAM disk (without an image file) whose contents disappears on shutdown. During next session, Chrome will simply recreate its cache.

Many thanks for your quick answer. My internet connection here is very very slow, less than 1 Mbps, and sometimes it's only around 0.8 Mbps, so my net surfing is painful and anything that can speed it up is welcome. We are expecting to get at last the optical fiber next year 2020...

I will try the solution to add the redirection of the whole Chrome cache. Do I have then to delete the symbolic link or can I leave it as it is?

There is a Chrome extension Data Saver by Google. If you are not already using it, it might help a bit: it will optimise and compress HTTP pages before sending them to you.

Regarding the symbolic link, it's probably best to delete it so you are using only one method of cache redirection: either the symbolic link, or the --disk-cache-dir parameter.