Hello,

JE>   I have seen a lot mentioned here about ramdrives. So I set one up on my
JE>   system. Can someone tell me the practical uses of it though. I just set

The most pratical use of the RAMdrive is in processing temporary files.

Many programs and DOS itself use various temporay files which are stored to
disk in their daily use. Since RAM is faster then a HD you'll gain a
performance edge for those programs.

The environment variable TEMP is the `standard' method of locating and
pointing to your temp drive or directory. Usually this is set to C:\TEMP
which means all temp files would be written and read to your HD.

However using a RAMdrive and changing this location to point to that drive
would speed up these accesses. Another `plus' is that since the RAMdrive
isn't permanent, there is no temp file `cleanup' needed.

Depending on one's RAM capacity, a RAMdrive can be used to speed up DOS and
Windows. Some people use it with their OLMR to speed up packing and unpacking
of mail. The list goes on and on.

Another use is as a kinda cartridged based system. By copying often used
programs to the RAMdrive you'll have instant access to them. For example one
might copy COMMAND.COM there and change their COMSPEC= variable to reflect
that.

There are even specialized battery backed RAM boards that you can buy that
contain MBs of memory. With these you could copy your entire Windows v3.xx
system to it and have instant access to it's files.

Cheers,
  Denis Boyles


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