Suitability for temporary-use workloads
2 posts
I tried RAM File System briefly in my environment. The UI and general operation felt familiar coming from RAM Disk, and it seemed suitable for temporary-use workloads such as OS TEMP, archive extraction, browser cache, and other short-lived files. In light testing, I did not encounter any obvious issues with applications such as Acrobat, Office, archive extraction tools, or browser cache usage.
That said, my main RAM drive use case depends heavily on Everything indexing. Since I use Everything extensively in my daily workflow, having an NTFS volume is important to me. For that reason, I expect to continue using RAM Disk as my main RAM drive.
Still, I find the design and performance direction of RAM File System very interesting. It seems like a promising product for workloads where NTFS compatibility and indexing are not required. I will keep an eye on future updates and may use it for dedicated TEMP-style workloads.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a considered report. The workload list and the fact that Acrobat, Office, extraction tools and browser caches all behave well is a valuable feedback for us.
The point about the Everything tool was brought up by several users, so we raised it with its developers (voidtools) directly and received an answer: Indexing support for a third-party filesystem driver. There is a supported route: folder indexing, set under Tools - Options - Folders.
Live updates work through ReadDirectoryChanges and SHChangeNotifyRegister, both of which our driver supports, so the index stays current rather than needing a rescan.
One practical note: because RAM File System reports itself as NTFS, Everything will try its usual USN journal method first, so you need to add the drive as a folder index explicitly rather than relying on automatic detection, if you'd like to see how Everything works with RAM FS.
Otherwise, staying with RAM Disk as your main drive is a perfectly sensible choice, and we will continue to develop and support both products.