Existing users, 
Ram Disk Creator
create RAM disks
Version: 1.0.1
Mac OS X memory handling
Feedback Type: Commentary
Contributed by: N Parker (San Diego) Friday, March 26 2004 @ 07:31 AM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Have Not Tried
Recommend Product: NO
I question the usefulness of RAM Disks on Mac OS X. Since virtual memory is always on, and Mac OS X automatically and dynamically adjusts the amount of RAM to each application as needed, I would suspect that a RAM Disk under Mac OS X will acutally cause the system to access the Hard Drive more, not less. You can't stop Mac OS X from paging out to virtual memory (aka writing to the hard drive). The bigger your RAM Disk, the more HD work your Mac will have to do.
Mac OS X memory handling - dylan3--2008
I wholeheartedly agree with this comment: modern (e.g., OS X's) filesystem buffer caches, in effect turn all "commonly used" files into ramdisk. I would be very interested in an A/B comparison between, say, apache running in this RAMDisk and the same apache running out of a normal filesystem. Anecdotes don't count! Numbers are what matters.Further, even if you have "Gobs" of DRAM, statically carving out portions of it for a RAMDisk takes that memory away from the OS for other tasks. This is just a bad idea.
OS9-heads: not everything missing from your old OS is a bad thing!!
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Friday, March 26 2004 @ 08:58 AM PST