Locations to place temporary files:
- Secondary partition, this will lower the chance of file fragmentation on the primary partition.
- Secondary HDD, this will lower the burden and fragmentation on the primary HDD.
- RAM-Drive, this will increase the speed of file operations and remove fragmentation (Though files will be lost a reboot).
- The TEMP folder : Controlling the temporary directory.
- The pagefile : Configure the page file for best performance.
- Temporary Internet Files : Controlling Internet Explorer's Temporary Files Cache.
- Disk Intensive Programs.
To create a RAM drive to store such files, one can use these free tools:
- DOS RAMDRIVE.SYS that have existed since DOS 3.3 (Included with Win9x and found here C:\WINDOWS. MSDOSDRV.TXT explains how to use it MS KB142546).
- XMSDSK is an extended version of RAMDRIVE.SYS for Win9x (DOS), which makes it possible to specify which drive to use for RAM-drive.
- ReSizeable RAMDisk is an extended version of RAMDRIVE.SYS for Win9x (DOS), which allows one to resize the RAM drive on the fly.
- MS KB257405 Win2k experimental Ramdisk.sys (Ramdisk with GUI controls).
- MS WinNT4 DDK RAMDRIVE WinNT4 experimental RAMDRIVE.SYS.
- PPSoft RAMDisk supports 95, 98, Me and 2000/XP (The download link is below the menu).
- AR RAM Disk it supports 2000/XP.
- Christiaan Ghijselinck RAMDisk supports 2k, XP and 2k3.
- Dataram RAMDisk - Supports 32 bit/64 bit Windows 2000-7.
- www.superspeed.com for NT and 2k.
- www.virtusoft.com for 9x.
- www.jlajoie.com for NT, 2K and 9x.
Been lookin' for ramdrive stuff for w2 and xp for a while now, the links you gave are just what I needed. ;)